


Road Trip

by kitkatt0430



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amicable Exes, Cisco and Kamilla aren't dating, Cisco doesn't know how to ignore a challenge from Hartley, Cisco hopes this means Harry and Jesse are still alive somehow, Cisco runs into Hartley searching for the Greyhound bus station, Hartley invites himself along for Cisco's tour of the new universe, Hartley just likes messing with Team Flash for laughs, Hartley's a flirt, Heist, It's not Barry who meets the latest timeline's Hartley, Lisa eventually shows up to cause trouble, M/M, Multiverse shuffle, and they broke up months ago, because Cisco is good at getting along with his ex-girlfriends, but the multi-verse reboot means Cisco also remembers the original timeline, but there are some things that have slipped through, interrupting the regularly scheduled road trip for a quick heist :D, like Nash and Laurel, not-really-a-villain Hartley Rathaway, past Cisco Ramon/Cynthia Reynolds, past Cisco Ramon/Kamilla Hwang - Freeform, so its complicated, sort of post-breakup, the universe reboot has tried to fill in the holes so their new timeline mostly matches the old, where they were dating right up until the universe died
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22983601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: On the way to the Greyhound bus station, Cisco gets a little lost.  He's contending with multiple timelines worth of memories, the bus station isn't where he remembers it to be (or is it?), and he's just about at the point of wishing Mar Novu was alive again just so that he could punch the smug jerk in the face.  And that's when Hartley shows up, in full Piper gear, and Cisco's ready to just nope his way back to his apartment to start this day over again.(Or the one where Hartley invites himself along on Cisco's road trip while Cisco figures that some days this might as well just happen.)
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Hartley Rathaway
Comments: 78
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was glad that Hartley got to cameo, but so sad there wasn't any snark to snark combat between him and Cisco. *sigh* Cisco wasn't even in the episode.
> 
> Not really sure how long this one'll be, but they've got quite a few stops on the way before returning to Central City. :)
> 
> Anyway, for this stories' purposes, only the paragons are supposed to remember the original timeline, but Cisco remembers it too because Mar Novu restored his powers.

Cisco stared at the pawn shop. The pawn shop, for obvious reasons, did not stare back.

Heaving a deep sigh, Cisco pulled out his phone and checked the map. Greyhound bus station at the corner of Renner and Garden Street. This was... this was not Renner and Garden Street.

Garden Street was a good five blocks west because apparently it had traded places with Market Street. Or was it Audelia Avenue that used to be over there and it was now erased entirely?

The point, Cisco thought with a sigh, was that much like with his freaking Super-Symbol shirt, his memories were wrong. Again.

Sometimes Cisco remembered this timeline the clearest. Which he ought to remember it clearest all the time. It was the 'real' timeline now. It was, arguably, the only timeline he'd actually, physically experienced. But the destruction of the multi-verse and the rebooting of this universe - a mish-mash of at least three universes, if not more - had coincided with the restoration of Cisco's powers. (If Mar Novu weren't dead, Cisco would punch the asshole in the face. Consent fucking mattered, dude.) So now Cisco's visions and ability to distinguish one timeline from another were on the fritz. Thus he could remember wearing the Super-Fam-Emblem t-shirt (with Kara's amused blessing, no less) but he couldn't remember buying the shirt. (It could've been a gift, who knew? Not Cisco, that was for sure.)

Similarly, Cisco could remember there was a Greyhound bus station at Renner and Garden. Just not where the hell Renner and Garden intersected.

Adjusting the duffel bag across his shoulder, Cisco headed in the direction of the bus station according to his phone. There was a quiet alleyway up ahead he could probably - hopefully - use as a breach point to make the jump to somewhere safe and quiet outside the station. He could vibe the right place now. Probably.

Part of him itched to call Kamilla, but Cisco didn't know if that was the version of him who'd been dating her for half a year and was deeply in love with her or the version of him who'd dated her for two months before they mutually decided they were better off as friends and was now as close to her as he was Barry or Caitlin. This universe was the one where their dating fizzled out but their friendship thrived. But Cisco's chest went tight with the heartache of that other timeline's self.

If Cisco were being honest, he'd admit part of the point of the road trip was to try and move on from that heartache before he made things weird with Kamilla. She's got some flirting thing going on with Ralph and Cisco would like to be happy for them. He remembers being happy for them; he'd like that emotion back.

The alleyway is, at least, where Cisco thought it was. Unlike the stupid bus station which should have been where the pawn shop was. Anyway. Alleyway. It's empty too, which is nice, and Cisco ducks back there, does a quick check for cameras - there are none - and then closes his eyes, concentrates on the map he'd seen on his phone, and vibes for a place closer to the bus station he can breach to. Someplace with no cameras and no spying eyes. 

Another alleyway springs into Cisco's mind's eye, empty and perfect and Cisco is opening up a breach when he hears the distinct sound of Hartley Rathaway's voice saying 'aw, shit' behind him.

Cisco closed the breach and turned around to see Hartley, dressed up in his Pied Piper outfit, ready to to... rob some place? Or not rob some place? Cisco can't remember if Hartley is a villain in this timeline or not. He'd included Hartley in his 'pokedex' of super villains, but he'd made that years ago and there were some other reformed villain's with their cards still in there. Like King Shark... was King Shark redeemed in this timeline? Or was that Doctor Light... who was most definitely not an alternate version of Linda Park... and Cisco needed to focus.

"Hey, Hartley," Cisco finally says, after the two of them continued to stare at each other awkwardly and it became clear Rathaway wasn't going to be speaking up any time soon. "Look, I'm headed to the bus station. So can we just... not?" Or he could go home. Try the bus station again tomorrow after a good night's sleep?

"What, not gonna fight me, Vibe? And it's Piper now, remember?" Hartley crossed his arms, then awkwardly remembered he had his gloves on and hastily dropped his hands back to his sides.

An amused smile tugged at Cisco's face for a moment at the sight. "Nope. Officially retired Vibe. And my powers are kind of fucked up right now, so no. And, no, I don't remember. Or I do, but I can't tell which timeline I'm remembering. So if you'll excuse me, I've got somewhere else to be."

Something akin to concern flickers across Hartley's face and it registers that he isn't wearing glasses.

"When did you get lasik? Or contacts? You did at least wear glasses at one point, right?" Cisco nearly face palms and refrains, barely, from hissing at himself under his breath to shut up and stop babbling. Because Hartley would hear him.

"Yes, I used to wear glasses. I got lasik about a month before Harrison fired me and screwed up my career." Hartley's voice had gone surprisingly gentle. "Cisco, are you sure you're okay? Because... you don't seem okay."

"Do you remember the red skies the other day? Some people remember, most don't." 

"I remember." Hartley walked closer, leaned against a nearby wall.

Cisco pulled off the duffel bag and set it on the ground; it was starting to get heavy and his back could use a break. "Well, that was basically... after images. Of the multi-verse rebooting."

"The multi-verse did what now?"

"It was destroyed. The entire multi-verse was destroyed by anti-matter. But there were a few survivors in a place called the Vanishing Point, which exists outside of time. They were able to reboot the multi-verse. But the physics are slightly different and so I don't know if it was the whole multi-verse or just this one universe because I can't tell if inter-dimensional breaches just don't work anymore or if there are no other universes for me to open a breach to. But this universe? Seems to be cobbled together from several of the universes from the other multi-verse. And I can remember all of those timelines. Which makes keeping straight what actually happened in this timeline? Difficult." Cisco let out a shaky breath. "So the short answer is, no. I'm not okay."

"That sucks," Hartley offered, sounding oddly sincere. "Where are you going?" 

"Greyhound bus station. Which I swear to god used to be where that pawn shop down the street is now. Except that pawn shop used to be something else and most certainly not a greyhound station which has always been at Renner and Garden. Except I distinctly remember that this intersection was where Renner and Garden used to meet. And it's only nine o'clock in the morning, but this is already turning out to be a shitty day. And I've got a headache." Cisco groaned softly and swiped a hand over his face. When he looked up again, Hartley was standing... far too close for comfort, considering they were apparently enemies again.

And, dammit, Cisco had probably been way too honest considering they were apparently enemies again.

He should take a step back. He really, really should.

Hartley peeled his gloves off and shoved them in one of the voluminous pockets of his hoodie. "No tricks, I promise," he said, wiggling his fingers, and then gently reached out and started rubbing at Cisco's temples. Very gently. Felt nice. Too nice.

Cisco leaned into the touch a little instead of backing away. Weird as it seemed, Hartley was being nice. Maybe they were frenemies instead of plain old boring enemies. "Thanks," Cisco sighed, letting his eyes flutter shut briefly.

There was a soft chuckle that made Cisco's eyes flick back open. "You're welcome," Hartley replied. "That still doesn't really answer where you're going. Greyhound station, fine. But from there, where?"

"I dunno? Just... touring the US. Trying to get a feeling for what's changed and what's the same. Get out of Central City and away from all my conflicting memories and just..." figure out who I am now gets left unsaid. It feels too personal to say out loud. "I'll pick my destination once I'm at the station."

Hartley's hands fall away. "Do you want company?"

"Not really."

The trouble making physicist nodded. "That's fair. It's too bad, though. You're getting company anyway. Someone has to come along and make sure you don't get lost in your head so bad you fall into the Grand Canyon or whatever."

Cisco's mouth opened. Snapped shut. Opened again. "No."

"Yup, I'm tagging along on this little party."

"Not five minutes ago you were expecting me to drop everything and fight you because we happened to walk into the same alleyway. I may not remember what you've been up to in this timeline clearly, but I know that in any timeline? You are the walking embodiment of both the 'be gay, do crime' and 'I think I shall cause problems on purpose' memes." Cisco groaned when Hartley smirked.

"I love that goose," Hartley said cheerfully, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Anyway, I need a little time to throw together my own travel duffel, but then I'm totally good to go."

"Hartley, no."

"Hartley, yes," Rathaway countered with a grin, though he sobered quickly. "If not me then you need to grab one of your little friends, Cisquito. Consider that I am genuinely worried about you gallivanting off on your own when you can't remember that I got lasik while I was still your most hated coworker at STAR Labs. Yes, I like to cause trouble. But I don't actually want anyone getting hurt when I do."

Cisco shouldn't be considering this. At all. Or at least he should be considering bringing a friend along after all. But everyone else he'd ask to go with him are busy and Hartley's right here. Volunteering.

"Fine. Where's your apartment? I can breach us there and then to the bus station. And don't tell me what store around here you were planning on stealing from or vandalizing or whatever. Just let me pretend you had legal reasons for being in this alleyway at nine in the morning."

"My apartment is right through there," Hartley answered with a laugh, gesturing to the far side of the alleyway. "And I was here because my illegal activities were done last night and I was on my way home after spending the wee hours of the morning in a safe house. Stole these." He held up a set of USB sticks. "Which I'm going to anonymously send to the FBI. They're gonna be very interested in what I found. So if we could make a pit stop at the post office...?"

Cisco made a wounded tea-kettle noise, but agreed to the post office stop all the same.

* * *

Hartley's apartment is rather nice. Nicer than Cisco remembers it being, but then its not the same apartment Cisco remembers. And also Cisco's never been to Hartley's apartment before. At least, not in this timeline. In previous timeline, the one that Cisco remembers the strongest today, he'd visited a few times. They'd been friends and Hartley had been working at Mercury Labs. 

"Do you still work at Mercury Labs or am I remembering the wrong timeline still?" Cisco finally asks.

"I worked there for about two years after the revenge of the twink incident." Hartley looked amused when Cisco snickered. "You made Harrison - or Eobard, whoever - repair the damage he did to my career and I attempted to go back to a normal life. Reconnected with my parents and things seemed relatively okay. Until my secondary meta powers kicked in and my parents freaked out and re-disowned me. I needed some time off work to come to terms with what my new sonic shriek really meant for me and I took an extended holiday from Mercury Labs. Sort of wound up... helping Lisa Snart pull off a caper that would make the Leverage Team proud... you know, if they were real and not just characters from a show about thieves. And it was the most fun I'd had since blowing out the windows on the Rathaway Corp building. So I quit Mercury and started up my own Leverage-esque type business. Which pays a lot better than Mercury Labs did. Most of the time you and your friends leave me alone because, regardless of the monetary theft, I'm helping put a stop to some really awful people. But occasionally I like to lure out you or the Flash to play with because my god do the both of you look amazing in your super suits. Shame you retired; those pants really clung to your ass just right."

Cisco choked and blushed. 

"Too much? Right, I'll just tone that down." Hartley looked a touch smug, though, and Cisco...

Cisco never really had much in the way of a self preservation instinct when it came to being challenged by someone and Hartley always seemed to turn that up to eleven. "Just wondering why you hide in that baggy hoodie."

The very hoodie, plus gloves, that Hartley had put in his duffel bag while Cisco watched from the bedroom doorway. What possible reason could... no. Cisco wasn't going to ask.

Hartley smirked and very deliberately stretched, revealing a sliver of skin between the bottom of his shirt and the top of his pants that Cisco could not stop himself from very blatantly staring at. "Very interesting... but it wouldn't be fair if I was distracting the heroes with the view of my pert ass," and then he bent over the bed way more than necessary to grab a shirt to fold up.

Swallowing hard, Cisco had to shift from side to side and think unsexy thoughts. Dead puppies, that did it. 

Tilting his head to the side, he watched Hartley finish packing in amused quiet. 

"Enjoyed the view?" Hartley teased, settling at a small desk in the corner of his room to remove any fingerprints from the USB sticks.

"Very nice. Would definitely have distracted me in a fight." Cisco enjoyed the startled laugh his comment received.

Hartley kept chuckling as he packaged the USBs up in an envelope, which he was careful not to touch without gloves. In went some sort of note too, presumably Hartley's anonymous message to the FBI about the data on the drives. Then it was all sealed up with several stamps affixed to the front and no return address. "So how do you feel about stopping by one of the Keystone post offices?"

"Yeah, sure." Cisco pulled his phone out and googled the locations of Keystone's post offices. "Oh, hey, there is one right next to a Greyhound bus station. Feel like leaving from Keystone instead of Central?"

"Works for me." Hartley put on a light jacket and then slung the duffel over his shoulder. Last, he grabbed the package which... was apparently now nestled inside a second envelope. One breach later, they were at the post office where Hartley let the envelop with the USBs slide out of the outer envelop into a mail receptacle. Then the outer envelope, the only one with Hartley's fingerprints on it, was neatly slipped back into his jacket pocket. None of which happened on camera thanks to the way Hartley blocked the view with his body. 

Cisco had to hand it to Hartley. He clearly had a working system. And some of Hartley's antics from this timeline were filtering back, which left Cisco with no doubt that whoever was about have their life flipped upside down by those USBs would completely deserve it.

They cheerfully headed towards the Greyhound station, stopping a small convenience store across the street first to stock up on snacks for the road. Then they headed into the station and wandered over to the ticket desk, staring up at the sign with bus departure times and ticket prices.

"So, where to first on the Ramon Road Trip?" Hartley asked. "Please, not Oklahoma."

"What's wrong with Oklahoma?" Cisco demanded.

"A few of my cousins live in that state and they're all homophobic assholes. So, please, not Oklahoma."

"Fair enough," Cisco relented. It was probably a lovely state, but maybe later. "Let's head in the direction of National City. I've got a friend who lives there, I bet she'd be happy with a surprise visit." Not too much of a surprise; twenty-four hour notice would likely be good enough with Kara, though.

"Alright, well... looks like they've got a bus headed to Cincinnati? Then depending on whether you want to see Indiana or Kentucky we could head to Indianapolis or Louisville and from either one of those to St. Louis," Hartley offered, pronouncing the 'Louis' in St. Louis and Louisville as 'Louie' instead of 'Lewis'.

"I thought only Louisville was pronounced like that and it was St. Louis;" Cisco stressed the 'Lewis' pronunciation for St. Louis.

"Tell that to the producers of _Meet Me in St. Louis_ ," Hartley countered, singing softly under his breath a few bars of the refrain of the song that shared the musical's name.

Cisco snorted in amusement. "Alright, that sounds like as good a plan as any. Lets decide on Kentucky vs. Indiana tomorrow, though. We can wander around Cincinnati this afternoon, get rooms at a motel, and go from there."

"Awesome," Hartley agreed and then they bought their tickets and headed over to wait the half-hour it'd take for the bus to start loading.

There was a tablet in Cisco's bag and some power backups; he'd intended to spend time reading while waiting for his bus. But now Hartley was here with him and... it made him wonder, anxiously, if maybe he should spend this time talking to him instead.

But then Hartley was pulling out a tablet of his own and flicking open the kindle app. "This'll give me time to catch up on a massive backlog of reading I've got. So much self-indulgent gay romance, so little time," Hartley teased, fluttering his eyes at Cisco.

Cisco smiled and shook his head in amusement. "Honestly, same. Queer SF instead of romance, but still. Same." He paused a beat, then said, "you're sure you can just up and tag along like this?"

"Well it's not like I've got a nine-to-five with coworkers and my friends are mostly Rogues. Recently took a young miss Joss the Weather Witch under my wing, as it were. She's a bit heartbroken over what happened to the lovely XS. What did happen to her, anyway?" Hartley tilted his head to the side inquisitively.

"She... she died. The Reverse Flash killed her." Which was close enough to accurate to be true. Eobard Thawne set Nora West-Allen up to die. And maybe his remorse had been genuine before he escaped, but the bastard hadn't cared enough to try and set things right. Just another casualty in his never ending chess match against Barry.

"I'm sorry," Hartley said quietly, taking a moment to pat Cisco's knee lightly.

Listing slightly to the side for a moment, Cisco bumped their shoulders together. Then, retrieving his own tablet, Cisco started reading.

* * *

The bus ride was actually quite nice, but Cisco found himself getting lost in his head a few times. Eyes skipping over scenery as he got lost in the memories of different timelines warring for dominance in his head.

Hartley was quick to pick up on when Cisco got sucked into loops of 'was this remembered event real or not?' and 'did this event happen one way or some other way?'. The physicist would start up quiet alphabet travel games that Cisco had to focus in order to have a shot at winning, neatly forcing Cisco to concentrate on the here and now.

By the time they stepped out of the bus at the Cincinnati station, Cisco was extremely grateful that Hartley had invited himself along after all.

"So, let's find a motel, check in, and then wander around for a while?" Hartley said, grabbing both their duffels from the storage compartments.

"Thank you, for coming with me," Cisco said quietly, sincerely.

Hartley ducked his head, blushing which was... unexpected and adorable. "Seriously," Hartley insisted, "motel first, I really don't want to lug this around all afternoon."

So that was exactly what they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: resolves to work on one of my existing WIPs
> 
> Also Me: Starts a new WIP
> 
> Still Me: repeatedly asks self to stop doing this to myself


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this story is officially extremely AU for the second half of season 6. Pretty much ignoring everything that happened post reboot forward now, especially considering the writers missed a perfect opportunity to give Cisco back his powers. (!!!!)

Cincinnati really isn't all that different from Central City. It's still the same state and Cisco's been before. Weekend trips during college just to get out of the Central and away from his parents for a few days. So it's not a super exciting change of scenery... but its still a change of scenery nonetheless.

They end up wandering through the Cincinnati Museum Center. It's touristy enough to satisfy Cisco's craving for something out of the normal to do... but makes him miss HR all of a sudden. And it hurts all the more to know that Iris, Caitlin, Frost, Wally, and Joe wouldn't even remember HR now. Tracy wouldn't either, for that matter, and that just...

Cisco's brain has to scramble to remember how Savitar was 'really' defeated in this timeline. And he can't... he can't remember. He can only remember HR. HR who wasn't a super genius or a meta or anything that immediately stood out as special, but an author and a bit of a ditz and... and probably the biggest damn hero Cisco ever knew. And now he's just... erased.

How though? How did you fill a hole in the world that big? Because, in the end, HR had been more special than any of them. It wasn't fair...

"Cisco?" Hartley jostled Cisco back to the present again.

"Sorry."

"It's fine. This is why I wanted to come along, remember?" Hartley slung an arm around Cisco's shoulders. "Do Barry and Caitlin know how hard things are for you right now?"

"If I blatantly change the subject, will you let me?" Cisco countered.

Hartley looked like he was trying really, really hard not to smile. It tugged at his lips and was very... distracting. Or maybe Hartley's face was just naturally distracting without the glasses.

Cisco decided to table that line of thought before it went somewhere he wasn't comfortable with. Yet, anyway.

"For now, anyway. Though it makes the answer to my question rather obvious."

"What's for dinner?"

Hartley shrugged. "It's your show, Ramon. I'm just along for the ride."

Heaving a loud, faux-put-upon sigh, Cisco fished out his phone. "There was a place I liked whenever I visited while I was still at college. Wonder if its still in business." It was indeed still in business and, to Hartley's obvious delight, it just so happened to be a Thai food joint.

The food was better than Cisco remembered, if a bit spicier too. But oh so delicious. Then, once they'd eaten their fill and paid their checks, the two of them headed back to their motel room. They'd rented just the one, splitting the cost for a room with two beds.

Cisco face planted on his bed while Hartley took first run at the bathroom. Then, once it was Cisco's turn and he was awkwardly scuttling under a too low shower head to rinse the suds out of his hair so he could do the conditioner next, he decided that he needed to do something really nice for Hartley when they got back to Central. Or find something really nice to do for him while they were still on this trip.

He came out of the bathroom dressed in his pajamas and toweling his hair dry, still considering what he could do for Hartley, only to rethink the whole 'do a nice thing for Hartley' thing. Why? Because he was swatted on the nose with some free pamphlets Hartley'd taken from the museum.

"What was that for?" Cisco demanded, rubbing at his nose and making grumbly noises.

"My amusement, mostly," Hartley proclaimed. "Also, you seemed really sad at the museum and I was wondering if you wanted to talk about it?"

"A few years ago, there was a speedster making trouble. Savitar. I guess it was during your second year at Mercury?" Cisco wasn't sure he wanted to discuss this with Hartley, but... Hartley was here and it was still bothering him.

"I vaguely remember that," Hartley agreed. "Speedster in some ridiculous blue armor showed up in a few tabloids, but they were keeping a low profile compared to Zoom or even Harribard."

"Harribard? Really?"

"I have far more insulting names for him if you'd prefer?" Hartley smirked in amusement while Cisco rolled his eyes.

"Savitar killed a friend of mine before we stopped him. But he was from another Earth and I can't... I don't remember if he was even here in this timeline because he came from a different Earth. I mean, no one remember's Harry, but somehow Nash is still here so I just..." Cisco shrugged.

"Who's Nash?"

"Nash Wells, an alternate version of Harrison Wells from... I don't even remember which parallel reality. I don't think I was paying attention at the time. But I think he's still here because of how involved he was in the whole multi-verse crisis. Not one of the Paragons, but... he's an adventurer and decided to myth-bust the wrong myth. The crisis would've happened eventually anyway, but it happened when it did in part because of him."

Hartley nodded, humming softly. "So Nash is here, but was he always here? Like... was his past altered so that he always lived on this Earth?"

Cisco frowned. "I'm... not sure." Then he shook his head. "No, he's definitely still from an alternate Earth."

"Well, maybe your confusion over your friend's involvement with Savitar is because in this timeline he lived on this Earth?" Hartley gestured towards where Cisco's phone was charging on the nightstand between the beds. "Give Caitlin a call. I can put on some music," he fished out a pair of nice Bose headphones from his bag, "if you don't want me listening in."

"Pushy," Cisco muttered, but he went over to his phone all the same, giving it an uncertain stare. "Alright, fine. Put on your music." Cisco hopped onto his bed and called Caitlin's phone while Hartley turned on some tunes and started reading.

"Hey Cisco," greeted Frost. "How goes the trip? Gone anywhere interesting?"

"Cincinnati so far, so not really," Cisco responded. "So, uh... I know I mentioned the whole difficulty keeping straight the different timelines thing, but... I've got a few questions. For you. Or Caitlin if you're not comfortable answering them?"

She was quiet for a long moment, then. "Yeah, sure. You know... Caity and I can always join you on this trip thing of yours." Frost sounded very uncertain about that, though. She wasn't a fan of car rides, so Cisco rather imagined a bus ride wouldn't exactly be great for her.

"Nah, it's cool. I ran into Hartley and he invited himself along. So I'm not alone on this after all." He grinned when Frost laughed. She'd only met Hartley a few times, but was rather fond of his penchant for causing trouble.

"Well, good. I was... concerned. A little." Frost was clearly trying, and failing, to play it cool. "So, what are your questions."

"Uh..." would it be insensitive of him to bring up HR? Would Frost, or Caitlin, even remember who he was? "My questions have some to do with what happened with Savitar." There, that'd give Frost the forewarning to bow out now if she wanted.

"Oh. That's... let me get Caity." And then there was silence as, presumably, Frost retreated to hand over control to Caitlin. "Hey Cisco," Caitlin greeted, voice still distinct from Frost's over the phone. "So, Savitar, huh?"

"Sort of. It's... kind of got a little to do with Nash and Harry, but mostly HR." He'd talked to Caitlin a little about Harry before leaving. Harry and Jessie and Cisco's powers. Caitlin couldn't remember Harry or Jessie. She remembered Zoom, though. He'd been the Hunter Zolomon of their world, granted powers by the singularity that Eobard Thawne had created in his failed attempt to return to his future. Harry and Jesse were... apparently just gone from their timeline entirely.

"Cisco..."

"Look... Harry was written out of our timeline, but Nash is still here and he came from a different Earth. He even remembers being from a different Earth. So... what do you remember about him?" he asked all in a rush, trying to outrun the pity in Caitlin's voice.

"I... don't know. Maybe he still comes from another Earth in truth?" Caitlin offered. "If he does, then maybe Harry and Jesse are okay after all. They probably won't remember us anymore than we remember them, though."

"Yeah... but that just leaves HR. Do you remember HR?" Cisco almost held his breath in anticipation of her answer.

"Yes. I remember HR," Caitlin breathed out. Voice shaky. "I'm still... I still feel really responsible for what happened to him, Cisco."

Touchy subject. Okay. He could be delicate about this. "Where was he from? Because I remember him being from another Earth. Like... eighteen or nineteen or something like that. The same Earth Cynthia was from."

"Your ex Cynthia? That Cynthia? The one who you broke up with when she decided to go work for ARGUS?"

"Yes, Caitlin. That Cynthia." Cisco rolled his eyes and then straightened because... Cynthia wasn't dead in this timeline. But she'd been dead in the other timeline and he'd forgotten that.

"From another Earth? That's just so weird to think of. She got her powers from the accelerator incident and..."

"Was from out of town, came back when her powers started manifesting. Yes, Caitlin, I remember my history with Cynthia just fine. It's HR I'm confused about. Though knowing he at least existed lessens the confusion because it just means that the two timelines I'm remembering are fuzzy because they're so much the same." It was a relief, really.

"He was Harrison Well's twin brother." Caitlin told him. Or reminded him; much the same thing at the moment. "They were estranged after Tess Morgan's death, presumably because Eobard Thawne was impersonating the real Dr. Wells at that point. He, uh, he came because he'd been out of the country when the singularity happened and it turned out fake Wells had left a few things for HR after all. So he showed up to claim his inheritance and ended up stumbling over the truth about the Flash because he partly owned STAR Labs and we couldn't exactly keep him in the dark about what our huge Flash-related budget was for. That and he just sort of walked into the Cortex without even a security pass; our security was really bad."

"It's still bad," Cisco muttered absently, memories finally filtering back in. He'd been frustrated with HR, who'd pretended at first to be a brilliant scientist... because he'd wanted to fit in with them. But then HR had admitted all he had was a bachelors in business management and was more of a writer than anything, revealing his pen name to be... Randolf Morgan. So named to honor Tess Morgan, who'd always been kind to him but had loved Harrison, not Harold. Randolf... had been his middle name? Except... Randolf Morgan had been the name of HR's friend who'd run STAR Labs with him on his own Earth, right?

"Cisco," Hartley was giving him a shove on the shoulder. "Tune back in, okay?"

Over the phone, Caitlin sounded concerned as she, too, echoed Cisco's name. "Sorry," he apologized to both of them.

Hartley just nodded and resumed reading.

"Are you okay?" Caitlin demanded, sounding very worried.

"Yeah, just... memories slotting back into place," Cisco told her, staring up at the ceiling. "This is why I needed a break from Central City," he told her. "Too many timelines there."

"Did you bring along a set of dampeners?" she asked. "It's probably not a good idea to try and rely on them completely like I did and I know you can't use the cure again, but maybe... at least while you sleep?"

"I did bring a set of dampeners," Cisco admitted. They didn't work well on him, much like they didn't work well on speedsters. Barry's speed had proven strong enough to overcome even the most powerful dampeners they had, at least under extraordinary circumstances. And while testing the less powerful dampeners, Cisco had occasionally managed to break past the... barrier it created, for lack of a better term. But Cisco had to concentrate to make his powers work with the dampeners on, so it would likely be enough to block any potential vibing in his sleep.

"Good. You know... you could still have me join you in the morning. Open up a breach and..."

"Like I told Frost, I've got Hartley here and he's been really good about keeping me focused here and not on errant timelines. I'm okay, Caitlin." Just tired and frustrated and so glad to be out of Central. But he didn't voice that thought.

"Your powers were never this bad before," Caitlin observed.

"We never had the multi-verse die and then get rebooted before either," Cisco pointed out. "My vibes always go a little haywire after big timeline changes. Remember after Flashpoint? I was seeing snippets of a very jerk-ass version of me running Ramon Industries for weeks after that one. And Nora's 52 different versions of the same evening? Seriously, be glad you don't remember how many times we all died that night."

"Fair enough. And this is certainly worse."

"Exactly. Given enough time, my powers will settle back down again." They both went quiet for a short while. "Thanks, Caitlin. For talking with me about HR."

"I miss him too." She paused a beat. "I haven't... I haven't gone back to... since the funeral. When you get back from this road trip of yours, would you... would you come with me to go visit him. I... I want to apologize and even though he's not really going to hear me... Or maybe because he... anyway... Frost and I don't want to go alone."

"Sure," Cisco promised. "I'll go with you two."

"Thanks." It was just Caitlin who spoke, but Cisco could almost hear Frost too somehow.

"Well, I think I'm gonna read and go to sleep. Good night, Cait."

"Good night, Cisco," Caitlin responded before they both ended the call.

"Hey, Hartley?"

"Yeah?" The other man tugged off his headphones and turned to look at Cisco.

"Thanks for snapping me out of that," he sort of waved his hand towards the phone as he set it aside.

"No problem. So, feel better?" Hartley managed to infuse the question with a great deal of smugness that had Cisco sticking his tongue out at Hartley before he could think better of it. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Yeah," Cisco conceded. "I feel better." He still missed Harry, though. There'd been a message he'd received from the older scientist about the progress he'd made on reversing the damage done by his attempt at recreating DeVoe's Thinking Cap and Harry had seemed so excited about his recovery... despite the changes in the multi-verse and Caitlin and the others not remembering Harry, the message had lingered in a drawer in Cisco's lab. He'd hoped it was evidence that, somehow, Harry and Jesse were still out there somewhere, but when neither Caitlin nor Frost could remember him...

There were little things that had survived the previous timeline. Cisco's powers being restored, Harry's message, Nash... Wait. There was... there might be someone else lingering from the other version of the multi-verse. Hadn't Barry said that Laurel was at Oliver's funeral?

"I'm going to make one more call, actually." Cisco opened up his contacts list.

"Want me to turn my music back on?" Hartley asked.

"Nah, it's fine. Wanna say hi to Tommy?" Cisco clicked Merlyn's name on his contacts and picked the mobile number to call.

"Tommy Merlyn? Sure. Why not," Hartley got off his bed and dropped melodramatically onto Cisco's.

As the phone rang, Cisco scooted over to make room. There was an impulse to drop his head against Hartley's shoulder, which Cisco ignored. But it was nice having the other man's warmth radiating against his arm.

"Hey 'Sco," Tommy greeted. "Super or social?"

Hartley laughed.

"Social. Ish." Cisco grinned widely. Tommy Merlyn was fun. And very much alive where he hadn't been before. Something he probably shouldn't really bring up in conversation right now. "I've got Hartley here with me."

"Hiya handsome," Hartley greeted.

"Oh god its you," Tommy responded. "You should have 'here comes trouble' stamped on your forehead, I swear."

"Are you still upset about the whole car swap thing? Because that wasn't my fault. I told you..."

"When in doubt, blame Oliver," Tommy responded dryly, but clearly amused. "That's not gonna work anymore, you know."

"We can always start blaming Barry," Hartley offered. Tommy laughed.

"Do I even want to know?" Cisco asked, smiling at their mirth.

"No," Hartley and Tommy chorused.

"Okay, so what's up, Cisco?" Tommy asked.

"My powers have been all over the place since the multiverse rebooted," Cisco told him. "So I'm having trouble keeping straight the different timelines."

"Is this about me or about Laurel?" Tommy's voice had gone more sober.

"Laurel. Is she still from Earth-2 or..."

"Earth-2. She doesn't remember the new timeline, so I was kind of a shock to her," Tommy said. "You, um, remember that I... was dead. In the other timeline."

"Yeah... I remember."

Tommy gave a soft, unreadable huff. "I didn't even get to thank him for changing the timeline like this. He's just gone. Anyway." Tommy steered the subject back to Laurel. "If you were wanting to talk with Laurel, she's already left Star City. Gone looking for Dinah, like it's not obvious those two are head over heels for each other. No one's quite sure how Dinah disappeared but... I've no doubt Laurel will find her. She took Ollie's cell phone with her, but when I tried calling yesterday it was out of service range or something like that."

"Thanks Tommy," Cisco said and then they just sort of chatted about random things for a little while before ending the call.

Hartley yawned widely and scooted off the bed in order to return to his own. "See ya in the morning, Cisco," he said, curling up beneath the covers.

"Night, Hartley," Cisco responded, turning off the lights.

There was a possibility that Harry and Jesse were still out there somewhere. For now, that was good enough for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter they'll be headed towards Louisville, KY home of Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby. They're too early in the year for the Derby, but that doesn't mean they can't check out the track while they're there. And they may be running into some familiar faces pretty soon too...


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, Cisco woke up and for a long moment he couldn't remember where he was. But it slowly filtered back. The road trip and Hartley tagging along.

He sat up, yawning and stretching and clicking off the dampeners he'd put on his wrists the night before. No weird dreams, that Cisco could remember anyway. So either the dampeners were working or his powers were finally starting to quiet back down.

Hartley was already awake and dressed, sitting on his bed and reading. Headphones on, though he looked over at Cisco as he pushed off the covers and leaned down to stow the dampeners away in his bag.

"Good morning," Hartley trilled with a grin, pulling off his headphones.

"Oh, god, you're a morning person aren't you?" Cisco groaned.

"Truly, I am a monster," Hartley agreed. "Get dressed and we can hit a coffee shop or a donut shop before heading back to the bus station. Figured out our next stop?"

"Louisville, Kentucky," Cisco said, after mentally flipping a coin. "It's closer, so shorter bus trip and... I've never been there. That's where the Kentucky Derby happens, right?"

"Yup, Churchill Downs race track, every first Saturday of May. Better to visit now, though. Around derby time, the city gets packed with tourists and it kind of sucks." Hartley had a grin on his face. "Bet you could get us in without having to waste time in the ticket line."

"That would be a very unethical use of my powers," Cisco protested. "Besides, I wouldn't want to risk accidentally opening a breach where other people would see it. Or accidentally walk through it."

Hartley snorted in amusement. "So if we could find a place that fit that criteria..."

"I'll think about it," Cisco responded dryly, smile tugging at his face. "Wasn't there an episode of _Leverage_ that took place at Churchill Downs?" 

"Maybe... it was definitely supposed to be a race track in Kentucky and there are a lot of those." Hartley paused a beat. "We should watch _Leverage_ tonight. Whatever motel or hotel we wind up at."

"Sounds good." Cisco yawned and stretched again, then fished out his jeans from the day before and a clean shirt to go change in the bathroom. Once he was dressed, and his teeth brushed, he rejoined Hartley in putting their stuff away. "Anything interesting to do in Louisville besides visit the race track?"

"The Louisville Slugger factory and museum does tours. It's kind of interesting seeing how the bats are made," Hartley said, sounding very much like he was talking from experience. No doubt he'd actually been to the derby once or twice with his parents. And visited the factory, too, Cisco supposed. "There's the derby museum or tours of the historic district if you're interested in seeing the old architecture... how much time do you want to spend there?"

"Uh... how about we stay all day tomorrow and then move on to the next stop?" Cisco double checked his bag and then zipped it up.

"Then we can spend the bus ride deciding what you'd like to see while we're there," Hartley offered.

Cisco grinned and nodded.

* * *

"So they are also known for their bourbon," Hartley was pointing out as they peered at his phone, sitting together with coffee and donuts at the bus stop, right when Cisco's phone started ringing.

Cisco leaned away, checking the caller id. And he frowned when he saw Cynthia's name on the screen. "I should take this," he said, before answering. "Hey Cynthia."

"What the fuck did you do?" she demanded. "My powers have been screwed up all week and now I remember dying. I remember some alternate version of you murdering me, Cisco."

He winced when Hartley's eyebrow went up.

"The multiverse died, Cynthia," Cisco replied, feeling a little guilty. "I'm really sorry, my own powers have been freaking out on me and it didn't occur to me you'd be in the same boat. It should have and I'm really sorry."

"What do you mean the multiverse died?" Honestly, it was completely understandable that she was freaking out about all this.

And... shit. Did Cisco have Echo's memories hidden in his head somewhere? Nope, not worrying about that right now. "I mean the multiverse was destroyed with anti-matter. There was a big fight against... you know what, I'm in a bus station right now. I needed a vacation so I'm on a road trip. How about I call you when I reach Louisville and we can discuss this in person, alright?"

Cynthia sighed. "Yeah, that's fine. Sorry for... shouting."

"I get it," he said, shrugging it off. Not a big deal, really. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah. I mean, I keep mixing up the name of the organization I work for. And apparently inter-dimensional breaches just... don't work. But otherwise, I'm okay. Lyla's giving me some time off."

"That's good. How about your dad?" He didn't have powers in this timeline, but considering Cisco shouldn't have powers either it was entirely possible that Josh still had his powers and memories of the previous multiverse too.

"Oh... shit." There was a sound like Cynthia had dropped something. "I'm gonna have to call you back."

"Good luck," Cisco responded in amusement and then ended the call.

"So that was your ex, huh?" Hartley asked. "I guess I'll be meeting her later?"

"Yeah, sorry. But she deserves an actual answer about what happened and that's better done in person." Cisco rolled his shoulders, suddenly feeling tense and stressed all over again. "She has the same powers as me, so she's having some of the same problems I am."

"Except she was dead and now she's not," Hartley observed.

Cisco nodded. "Echo was... not a very nice person and I really hope I don't stumble across any of his memories. Can we just... leave it at that?"

"Yeah. So... bourbon?" Hartley smirked. "We don't have to worry about carrying it around if we were to, say, buy a bottle of the good stuff. We could just... portal it back to our apartments."

Letting out a shaky laugh, Cisco tried to let himself get pulled back into a discussion of which tourist traps they wanted to visit. It hadn't even occurred to him before that Echo might be rattling around in his head somewhere. But now he can't seem to get the horrifying possibility that those memories are part of him now out of his head...

Hartley slung an arm around Cisco's shoulders, which Cisco leaned into for the comfort, and continued to chatter on about the many attractions of Louisville. For now, this had to be enough.

* * *

By the time the bus ride is over they have an itinerary for the next day - morning: races if Cisco can find a safe place to breach them to and/or visit the Louisville Slugger factory and afternoon: visit one of the bourbon distilleries that Hartley was interested in and wander the historic district - and a hotel reservation for two nights at a Holiday Inn. The wifi should, hopefully, be good enough to stream _Leverage_ and they'll get complimentary breakfast each morning, a distinct plus compared to the motel the night before. Also they snagged an early check in since they'd be arriving around lunch time and neither wanted to hang onto their bags where ever they ended up eating.

Hartley might've mentioned something about access to a hot tub too, which... would be a nice treat. Cisco would need to breach home to grab his trunks if they do use the pool facilities, in that case. He hadn't thought to pack them. Perks of still having his powers, Cisco supposed. At least there were perks.

They took an Uber to the hotel and Hartley signs them in while directing Cisco to sit down, take some aspirin, and drink some water. Which, considering Cisco has a headache, is fair.

"You know, meditation helped me a lot for getting my hearing issues under control," Hartley said as they wandered towards the elevator. "I still need my hearing aids, but I'm not in the constant pain I was in before. Do you think it might help you with your abilities too?"

"Maybe. It's worth looking into, anyway. I'm glad it's helped you," Cisco offered.

"Turned out if I focused I could lower my hearing threshold which made the tinnitus less of a problem. Fewer migraines are a plus and eventually it became habit. I can keep my hearing aids on a less battery intensive setting, so I'm not pulling them out every week." And pulling out his aids hurt; Cisco remembered the looks of pain Hartley hadn't been able to hide when he'd still been perfecting the hearing aids with Caitlin's help.

"Do you mind if I have Cynthia breach directly into our room?" Cisco asked as they got into the elevator.

"That's fine. She should join us for lunch if she has the time to spare. I bet you'd like to catch up with her on more than just the multiverse crisis," Hartley offered. 

Cisco nodded. "That'd be nice. I haven't seen her since she moved to Star City." He wrinkled his nose up as he tried to remember this timeline's events better. It was bleeding over a little into the previous timeline just enough to make his brain feel fuzzy. "She wanted me to join ARGUS with her and I'd been planning on asking her to move in with me so we could stop doing the long distance thing... and we sort of realized we wanted different things. I wasn't going to leave Central and she didn't want to stay... and I really don't like ARGUS, despite the reforms it's gone through and..." Cisco shook his head. "We didn't even argue about it. We just... realized it was over."

"Still sucks." Hartley offered Cisco an understanding glance before leading them out onto the second floor. "We're room 242. Two beds, one bathroom, free wifi, and complimentary breakfast for our stay. And access to a hot tub which I cannot wait to try out." He grinned impishly and Cisco laughed, relaxing for just a little while.

It wasn't long before they found their room and settled their bags and Cisco left Hartley to decide who got what bed in the back room while he flopped onto the couch to call back Cynthia.

"Hey Cisco," Cynthia greeted, sounding calmer than she had that morning. "Sorry about earlier, I just... remembering dying freaked me out."

"Trust me, I know exactly how it feels," he assured her, rubbing his chest reflexively. "Are you okay to breach over or would you rather just talk on the phone?"

"Uh..." Cynthia hesitates and Cisco understood completely why that was. In another life, the last face she'd seen was his. As Echo murdered her. "I can come over. Let me just vibe your location and I'll be over in a minute."

"See ya," Cisco said, hearing the click of the call ending. He moved the coffee table out of the way just in case before sitting back on the couch.

Hartley poked his head into the room, "is she com..." a breach opened up. "That answers that, I guess. I claimed the bed by the window, hope you don't mind," he finished as Cynthia walked through the breach into the room.

"That's fine," Cisco replied, standing up to shake Cynthia's hand. Which would probably be awkward, so it was a relief when she hugged him instead. "Hi, Cynthia."

"Hey Cisco." Her grip tightened for a moment, before letting him go. "Uh, hi?" She added, turning to Hartley.

"Cynthia, this is my friend, Hartley Rathaway. Hartley, this is my... ex. Cynthia Reynolds." Cisco gestured between them both.

"It's nice to meet you," Hartley offered, with a little friendly wave.

"You're the Pied Piper," an amused smile appeared on Cynthia's face. "I've been dying to know how you did that thing with the car in Star City."

"First, I have no idea what you're talking about," Hartley replied. "And second... if I did, all I would be able to tell you is that it was all Oliver Queen's fault." He smiled, a guilelessly charming expression that Cynthia rolled her eyes at.

"Uh-huh. Sure." Cynthia shook her head as Hartley disappeared into the back to give them space again. "I talked to my dad. He doesn't remember any timeline but this one and he doesn't seem to have powers, but that might be due to how his powers were already fading. I've asked mom to keep a close look on him, just in case. He did seem to be aware you were dating someone named Kamilla?"

"Yeah, that... didn't work out," Cisco said, leaving it at that. "So... the story of how the multiverse rebooted? It's a long one, you got time for lunch?"

"Sure."

"We can order room service," Hartley spoke up, strolling back in and waving a menu at them. "Overpriced sandwiches anyone? I'm buying."

"I wouldn't say no to free food," Cynthia agreed with a smile.

* * *

Cisco has a rapt audience once the sandwiches arrive and he starts relating what he remembers of the red skies crisis. Well, actually, he has to backtrack a little and tell them about the fight with Bloodwork and how they'd all been exhausted nearly losing Barry, and most of Central City, to a zombie invasion first. He can't resist mentioning that Ramsey's first zombie was a man named Romero, because sometimes reality gifts you with peak dark humor that crosses the line enough times that you just have to give up and laugh so that you don't wind up crying.

Ramsey had been Caitlin's friend, once. And Frost had seen something of herself in his fall from grace. He's glad Ralph can be there for both of them while Cisco can't. Who knew the guy they'd initially written off as a misogynistic ass could learn to grow so much as a person?

But after that came the red sky and a massive multiverse crossover event. And just as it seemed like they'd won... it all fell apart and everything died. For a whole month, all that remained were ashes and a handful of survivors trapped in the remains of the Time Master's former home, a place beyond time and reality. Cisco doesn't know much about what happened during that time. He knows that Barry and the others did something with the Speed Force and the Book of Destiny and something about Oliver, but there were three points of energy that rebooted the multiverse... sort of back to how it used to be, except... not.

While it was possible that it had only brought back one universe that was a mishmash of a handful of universes from the original multiverse, Cisco still believed there were other universes still out there. Some, like theirs, was a mash up of old universes. Some were probably the exact same universe they were before, whole and unscathed. While other universes were entirely new creations of the new big bang. And probably some universes from the old one that didn't survive in any form whatsoever.

"So I'm me, but I'm also the Cynthia who died from Earth-19, and for some reason I have strong memories of being a mechanic," Cynthia finally summed up. "So that's... what, three Earth's that combined into this one?"

"Well, I don't remember being Echo, and let's hope it stays that way," Cisco replied, "but I remember this timeline, my original life on Earth-1, and vague memories of two others. One where I went by Paco and worked at Cisco," he smiled a bit when Hartley snorted in amusement, "and another where I'd just started as a professor of physics somewhere... it was Supergirl's original Earth, because it was near enough to National City that she was in our news a lot."

"And being the only non viber of the bunch, I remember exactly one timeline, this one." Hartley chimed in, presumably so as not to feel left out. "Am I any different than you remember?" he asked, clearly curious.

"Not really? I mean... I think things may have fallen apart with your parents a little sooner here and you were slightly less prone to taking your boredom out on Barry and you stuck with Mercury labs longer before the timeline changed, but... you've always liked to cause trouble on purpose." Cisco shrugged. They'd never exactly been close, so whatever differences there were, Cisco wasn't as aware of them with Hartley the way he would be with others. He'd been uncertain before, but spending time with Hartley had settled his memories... at least where the vigilante-thief was concerned.

"I always did think I had a lot in common with that horrible goose," Hartley mused. "So... who wants to go to a meadery?" Seeing blank looks on both Cisco and Cynthia's faces, he elaborated, "it's like a brewery or a winery but for mead? As in the honey wine? Anyway, there's a place not too far called Hive and Barrel and it's got good reviews on yelp..."

"I'm game," Cisco agreed. "Cynthia?"

"I've got time off work while my powers a wonky, so sure. Let's go drink mead. If you two don't mind, can I stick around until after dinner? It's kind of nice, getting out of Star City for a little while." Cynthia looked uncertain though, and Cisco had the distinct impression she was asking Hartley more than him. Which was weird, but whatever.

Hartley just nodded along with Cisco and assured her that 'the more the merrier.'

* * *

Mead was delicious and Cisco wound up buying a bottle of his favorite from the two flights he ordered. He figured Hartley's plan to use Cisco's powers to send a bottle of bourbon safely home was a good one. Cisco's mead of choice ended up being the Rum Barrel Aged, though he'd considered carefully the Mango Chipotle. 

They wandered off to a bar next where Cisco nursed a local brew - not bad, but not memorable either - and Hartley explained how betting on horses worked since one of the big TVs was tuned into Churchill Downs. Cisco wasn't totally following what he was saying, perhaps a little too preoccupied by the sound of Hartley's voice to pay a great deal of attention to the content of his words. Cynthia looked amused as her eyes flicked between them.

When Hartley wandered off towards the bathroom and what looked to be a small gift shop in the back, Cynthia said, rather bluntly, "he's cute."

"He is gay, ya know," Cisco said, intending to warn her off before she thought it a good idea to flirt with him.

Except her response? "Oh, good. I wasn't thinking of him for me, Cisco. I've got a... I don't know what we are yet. Still in the feeling each other metaphorically stage, but... he's cute and you like him."

Cisco blushed. "He's not interested in me that way and we don't exactly have the best history... what?"

"He dropped everything to come along with you on your road trip, Cisco. He's probably being a gentleman by not doing anything but flirt, but the way he kept watching your ass as we walked over was not the way someone looks at a person they're disinterested in." Cynthia tapped him on the nose with the tip of the little plastic sword that once sported the olive in her empty martini glass. "And when you're in a better head space? I think you should go for it. He gets the ex-girlfriend's stamp of approval. He makes you laugh and keeps you focused. He looks at you with little hearts in his eyes."

"Do I get to meet and approve of your will-they-won't-they partner?" Cisco asked dryly, trying to figure out when Hartley could have possibly given him a heart-eyes look because surely Cisco would have noticed...

"Maybe. If you show up at Star during this little road trip of yours and I'm actually in town. ARGUS sends me pretty much all over the place, so I'm only there maybe half the month at most." Cynthia paused a beat. Her tone wry, she said, "I love it. But you'd have hated it. I'm glad we ended when we did, even though it hurt so much. We make good friends this way." Cynthia's water arrived just in time for her to hold it up to toast Cisco's beer with.

"Yeah," Cisco agreed, layers upon layers in what he was saying now. "I'm glad we were able to be have the chance to be friends." Because they very nearly didn't. And considering everyone he'd lost over the years, Cisco is so grateful he got at least one of them back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The meadery is a real one. I've never been, but I was looking up real meaderies in the area and it's meads sound delicious. It's actually on the opposite side of Louisville from Churchill Downs, in Crestwood. But we've got two vibers in this chapter so they go where they want. :) Had fun with Cynthia, but she probably won't be back for the rest of the story. Just wanted to get things settled with her and fix her somewhat... insulting death. (Just because she broke up with Cisco was no excuse for the writers to fridge her for Cisco's character development. *sigh*)
> 
> Anyway, next time on the road trip, Cisco and Hartley watch _Leverage_ , illegally enter a race track, and have a bit of a heart to heart about their feelings (not necessarily in that order). They're not going to be getting together for a while longer, but Cynthia decided they needed to at least acknowledge their mutual attraction and who am I to argue with one of my characters?


	4. Chapter 4

They had dinner at a pizza parlor and split a large and some bread sticks between the three of them before Cynthia breached home. Cisco and Hartley walked back to the hotel in the evening light, not really talking but just... enjoying the quiet and each other's company. At least... that what Cisco hoped was going on, anyway.

Hartley had seemed sort of nervous since the bar and Cisco was absolutely certain he'd overheard Cisco's conversation with Cynthia. Cisco honestly wasn't sure what to do to put Hartley back at ease. He didn't want this attraction between them to make the trip awkward. While Cisco had intended for this to be a solo trip, now that he had Hartley with him he didn't want to lose his unexpected company.

Once they were back in their room, Hartley said, "I'm kind of a flirt. You've, uh, you've noticed that. I'm sure."

"Yup. Hard not to notice when a cute guy is flirting with me the way you do," Cisco replied, a touch teasingly. "And I hope you've noticed all the flirting back."

Hartley relaxed a little bit and nodded. "I don't want you to think I came along just to... get in your pants."

"If I thought your sole intention was to seduce me? I'd have left you behind in Central," Cisco replied. "Honestly, I wasn't really sure whether you were serious about your flirting or not. And while I'm flattered and interested, I also... before the multiverse died, I was dating someone. And now it's literally that she and I were dating and living together one minute and amicably broken up for months the next."

"Ouch." Hartley grimaced. "That's rough, buddy."

"Thanks, Zuko." Cisco couldn't help but smile at the reference. "She doesn't remember anything but this timeline. And she's got feelings for someone else now. Which leaves me in the weird position of having to move on, after having already moved on. Sometimes my feelings from that timeline are the most real and I'm heartbroken. And sometimes this timeline feels the most real and I'm just sort of... wistful about what could have been. If anything were to happen between you and me... I want to be sure I'm over her. And... well... you should know I have a habit of catching feelings really fast once sex gets involved, so..."

"You're not the only one who catches feelings easily," Hartley said quietly, ducking his head.

Oh... does Hartley...?

Cisco reaches out and tangles their fingers together, waiting until Hartley looks at him again to say, "good."

Hartley blushes. "So... _Leverage_. We were going to watch _Leverage_ tonight, right?"

Well, they were also going to do the hot tub, but Hartley's a little too flustered for that now, or so it seems. Cisco's maybe a little too flustered for that too.

So _Leverage_ it is.

* * *

Cisco wakes up convinced he overslept. It takes him a long moment to realize that the crick in his neck isn't from falling asleep with his head on Kamilla's shoulder, but Hartley's.

It's 4:00 am, though, so Cisco very much did not oversleep. He has, in fact, under-slept... if that were a thing. He prods Hartley awake and sends him stumbling to bed and then rubs at his neck halfheartedly, trying to determine if he can sleep off the awkward pain in his neck or if he should take a hot shower to work it out. He decides on the shower and crawls into bed half an hour later, his hair still damp.

He doesn't really fall asleep after that, but he lays there in a light doze for a few hours until Hartley wakes up for real and takes his own shower. Cisco's pretty sure his confusion over whether he was with Kamilla when he woke up was a sign that he made the right choice the night before, to let Hartley know where he stands relationship wise. He's definitely not ready to start something with someone else yet.

Much as he might wish otherwise.

* * *

They ended up breaching into Churchill Downs. The cover charge is only five dollars a person, but apparently it was the principle of the thing or something.

Cisco's pretty sure that Hartley just thought it'd be hot to see Cisco break the rules and sneak into the race track. Especially given the satisfied-cat expression Hartley wears when they step through the breach.

They grab a couple of programs and head out into the general admission seating, Hartley leading the way to the railing around the track. A race had just finished as they'd walked into the sunlight and Cisco is really glad they're taking the time to visit the track. He's never been to a horse race before and it's pretty exciting.

Hartley leans on the railing and has Cisco join him. "Okay, so do you remember anything I told you last night about how racing and betting works?"

"Not really," Cisco admitted. "I was a bit tipsy and..." he blushed. "Too busy listening to the sound of your voice to pay attention to what you were saying."

"That is... weirdly flattering." Hartley grinned, cheeks bright red. "Anyway. The program has a tone of really interesting information on the horses, even if you're not here to bet. First, there are the kind of races. I don't see any steeplechases on the program today, which is too bad. Those are very interesting - races with hurdles for the horses to jump. Looks like today's are all flat races."

"Running, no jumping," Cisco filled in. "Why's the other kind called a steeplechase?" 

"I don't know, but I bet Wikipedia does," Hartley pulled out his phone and a moment later they were checking the article on steeplechasing. "The tracks were oriented based on the nearby church steeple... makes sense," Hartley murmured before tucking his phone away again. "Okay, so back to flat racing. There are different categories of flat racing: maiden, claims, allowance, stakes, and handicap races."

"So would a maiden race be for first time racers?" Cisco guessed.

"That, and other horses who've yet to win a race. They'll usually restrict which ages can participate in which race. The next race on this track looks like it'll be a maiden race for two-year-olds." Hartley gestured to the program he was holding so Cisco could see the race he was referring to. "Claims races are where every horse in the race is for sale. There's still a purse for the current owners to compete for, but it's usually not a particularly big purse."

"Purse being the term for the prize money." Cisco did remember that, vaguely. Though whether it was from Hartley's speech the night before or a tv show that had an obligatory horse racing episode, Cisco can't be sure.

"Correct. Allowance races are generally on par with claims races, but the horses aren't for sale and the purses are a little bigger. Stakes races are for proven horses who've won at least enough earlier races to qualify. The purses are much higher than allowance races. So are handicap races, but that's where my track knowledge fails me, I'm afraid." From there Hartley explained the details in the program; track times, previous racing stats, previous wins, and the various other bits of data that factored into betting.

"It'd be fun to come back and make a day of this. Either here or... Central City doesn't have a track, does it?"

"Nope, but Keystone does. The prices for their dining area are better than Churchill Downs, though the track doesn't exactly have the reputation this one does. No well known races like the Derby or the Oaks." Hartley grinned, "we could make a date of it. Or maybe a team bonding event with your friends."

"Or both," Cisco replied easily. "When does the next race start?"

"On the half-hour... so we've got about five minutes left. Still time to place a bet, if you want?"

Cisco shook his head. "No betting today. Maybe next time. I just want to watch them run."

So they watched from the railing as the horses were loaded into the starting gate, one of the horses seeming jittery. The track announcer reminded everyone that the race was about to start and then there was count down on the huge tv screens all over the track. 

"And they're off!" The announcer proceeded to completely lose Cisco with his fast commentary on the horses. There was one horse coming up on the left and a bunch in a pack and one that had broken out ahead of the rest early on. A closer came up from behind in the final stretch, passing the second place horse who was... fading? Probably tired and slowing a little, Cisco guessed. The horse that came up from behind became the new second place horse just in time to cross the finish line, but still a good yard or so behind the first place winner. Cisco rather thought that horse could've gone on another quarter mile and still have been flying.

There was just something about that horse that made Cisco think it loved running more than anything. And winning too. As the horse let itself be led to the winner's circle for pictures, it was clear that horse loved the attention.

"Want to get some funnel cake and some coffee while we wait for the next race?" Hartley asked.

"Yeah, and some seats."

* * *

They watched two more races, but by then they'd been at the track for over an hour and a half and Cisco was getting a little restless. So they went back to their quiet little hidden corner of the facility and breached back to their hotel room to decide where they wanted to go for lunch. Some place in walking distance, preferably. They ended up at a dog cafe where people were encouraged to bring their pets with them, so long as the dogs were well behaved. Cisco got to pet several terrier mixes and a labradoodle and was basically in dog heaven by the time they were done eating and headed for the baseball bat factory and museum. 

Louisville Slugger bats had been around since the 1890s, apparently, and were considered to be pretty iconic in baseball. Cisco had played some baseball in high school - he'd been fairly decent at it - and there had definitely been something special about his team's slugger. He could hit the ball far more consistently with that bat than any other. Despite how much he'd resented being forced into the sport by his parents, Cisco had loved playing pick up games at the college sports fields while he'd been getting his bachelors degree. So there was a certain amount of nostalgia for him involved in touring the factory.

Also it was pretty cool to see how the baseball bats were made. 

"I never got into any sports," Hartley admitted, after Cisco related a few fun stories. "Played some soccer in elementary school but I skipped so many grades that it was never clear which team I should be on and then my parents decided it was a waste of my time, anyway. Band would look better for my resume. Always liked basketball, though. I used to..." suddenly it was Hartley who was going unfocused, distant. "Harrison would play a pickup game with me sometimes."

Cisco took Hartley's hand in his own. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Just... sometimes it still just hits wrong." Hartley squeezed Cisco's hand and they stayed that way for the rest of the tour.

Afterwards they skipped the museum, though they did poke around the gift shop for a little bit before leaving empty handed. Cool trinkets but all of it way too overpriced for stuff neither of them were really all that interested in. 

They wandered for a while after that before breaching over to a place called the Bulleit Frontier, a whiskey and bourbon distillery they'd found googling on the bus ride the day before. It had looked like the place did walk ins for their tours and luck was on their side. They both enjoyed the tour, oohing and aahing over the distilling process. Neither of them knew the first thing about making alcohol, but Cisco certainly thought it was fun seeing how it got made. Afterwards they sat in the on site bar and enjoyed a drink or two. 

Hartley tried out a Kentucky Mule while Cisco went for a Mint Julep. Afterwards, Hartley bought a bottle of bourbon to take back to their room at the hotel where they deliberated over where to go for dinner. They ended up deciding on a restaurant just down the road from the hotel known for their chicken fried steak and then, finally, Cisco breached home from their hotel room long enough to pick up his swim shorts so that he could join Hartley in the hotel hot tub.

It was very relaxing and, well... Hartley looked really good, mostly naked and wet. Cisco definitely appreciated the eye candy. Not that he's the only one enjoying the view. Hartley's eyes wander enough to be flattering, but not rude, and he seemed more than a little fascinated when Cisco pulled his hair up into a messy bun to keep it out of the water.

There was something really nice about being found distracting and desirable like that.

Once back in their room, dried off and in their pajamas - their swimsuits drying over the curtain rod at Cisco's apartment - they settled down for a few more episodes of _Leverage_ before retiring to their beds for the night, actually making it to bed before falling asleep instead of after this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Churchill Downs and other racing tracks, I'm not actually sure there would be races in late January, when this story is set. (It's not totally clear when Crisis was, but I'll say late January.) Thoroughbreds race during spring and summer, with quarter horse racing taking over in late summer and the fall. So during the winter months, the tracks are most likely closed. Also, the Churchill Downs post times schedules only shows races in the afternoon, meaning Cisco and Hartley would be too early in the day for races. But this is fanfic and I wanted them to see races in the morning during the off season, so... *waves hands to use the author magic* races.


	5. Chapter 5

St. Louis is their next stop and Hartley tries to bring up the question of the correct pronunciation again. 'Lewis' vs 'Lewey'. Cisco refuses to have anything to do with that debate while they take advantage of their free breakfast before checking out.

At the bus stop they book their next hotel since they've decided to do the same thing there that they did in Louisville, take a day to see the sites that interested them the most before moving on to the next city on their slow march towards National City. It's a lot longer drive from Louisville to St. Louis than their last two bus rides, so they make sure their phones and tablets are all powered up while they wait for loading time.

This is when Hartley stumbles across a brilliant idea. "So, the Missouri River Runner Amtrack train runs from St. Louis to Kansas City." He beckoned Cisco over to take a look at the website over his shoulder. "It's supposed to be a scenic ride and it would give us some variety in how we're traveling. Plus, it apparently makes a number of stops along the way that we might want to check out. The wineries sound nice; we could always get off in Hermann and visit a couple before continuing on to Kansas City."

Cisco read over the train line description and then nodded with a smile. "Sounds fun. I bet the scenery will be gorgeous."

* * *

Barry calls about halfway to St. Louis. He chatters cheerfully enough, but there's a weird catch in his voice.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Cisco finally asked.

"I went to visit my parents' graves yesterday," Barry admitted quietly. "The graveyard wasn't where I remembered."

"I'm sorry," Cisco said sincerely. He had a bit of an idea how that felt. "The city layout is different in this timeline. You're going to have to spend some time reacquainting yourself with Central City's maps."

"Yeah... it just... feels like I'm out of step with everyone. And..." Barry sighed. "Everyone was dead and now everyone's alive again. And after what Bloodwork and the Speed Force showed me before then..."

Sounded like Cisco wasn't the only one whose head was a mess. He felt a little bad for leaving Barry behind; if Cisco hadn't needed to get out of Central so badly...

"You need to talk to Iris about what you saw." Cisco had his guesses. The one thing that would really hurt Barry... Nora. 

"I don't want her to worry."

"She's gonna worry anyway," Cisco pointed out. "The multiverse was dead for a month, Barry. You have to talk to someone about what you went through. It's not good for you to bottle it up like this. If you can't talk to Iris, then talk to me or Joe or Caitlin or someone. Please."

Barry let out a shaky, pained sigh. "Okay."

Relief settled on Cisco's shoulders.

"I'll talk to Iris about it." It was a start, at least. "How are you doing? Are things better now that you're outside of Central?"

"Yeah. Yesterday was really good. Hartley took me to see the horse races." Cisco smiled at the memory of the loud track - probably so much louder and more uncomfortable for Hartley, in retrospect, than it had been for Cisco - and the sight of the horses running around, tails flaring and hooves beating the ground. It had been fun. "And we learned how bourbon and whiskey gets made."

"Sounds fun," Barry said. "Tell Hartley I said 'hi.'"

"I can hear him," Hartley muttered, a touch guilty sounding. "Tell him 'hi' back, I guess."

"Hartley says 'hi', too," Cisco dutifully reported, not much concerned about Hartley's eavesdropping. It was just how Hartley was now. He heard everything, whether he wanted to or not. Absently, Cisco patted Hartley's hand.

His conversation with Barry did't last long after that and Cisco made a mental note to text Iris later, just to be sure Barry actually talked to her. 

* * *

At some point, Cisco fell asleep on the bus. And when he woke up, his head felt wrong. He felt weird. Distant.

Not good.

Something was preying at the edge of his mind. Something he didn't want to see.

He stumbled getting up, feeling uncoordinated and slow as he followed Hartley to retrieve their bags. Cisco felt uncomfortable at Hartley's concerned glances. 

Hartley took care of getting them an uber to the hotel and checked them in. Cisco was only barely aware of any of this, letting Hartley steer him along.

"Cisco," Hartley said once the door shut. "Talk to me. What's going on?"

"My powers want to show me something and I don't want to see it," Cisco muttered, pressing his hands to his eyes. He didn't want to see it. Didn't want to know. This was bad, he knew it.

He felt it in his bones.

Arms curled around Cisco's shoulders, pressing Cisco's face gently against Hartley's neck. "What can I do to help?"

"This. Just... this." Cisco clutched at Hartley and shivered. Despite how he fought against it, blue crawled at the edges of his vision until, finally, the vibe broke through and was all he could see or hear.

But, somehow, he could still feel Hartley's collarbone beneath his cheek and Hartley's arms around his back.

* * *

The first time Cisco had a vision he didn't want to see, was also the first time his powers began to present themselves to him. His own death at the hands of his mentor.

It had never really gotten better.

Oh, sure, Cisco learned to create breaches and use his vibrations to protect his friends and the people of Central City. And his visions were useful too, when he could control them. But his vibes weren't so easily controlled in vision form. They didn't always come when he wanted them. More often they came when he didn't want them. Like now.

One of his other selves had spent a great deal of time in St. Louis. Had run away here as a child, running from a version of his parents that seemed unrecognizable to Cisco. His parents weren't always supportive or understanding, but they always loved him. The parents this other Cisco had did not love him. Any capacity for love they might've had for love had shriveled up after the deaths of his older brothers and sixteen year old Francisco Ramon had run away. Taken a new name.

Echo.

Cisco always had a penchant for the dramatic. Usually he channeled that drama into humor. He was the funny one. But sometimes...

Sometimes Cisco turned mean. The way he'd treated HR, nearly destroyed his friendship with Barry out of grief, the other timeline where he'd created a device not to merely incapacitate Hartley but to cause him pain... 

There were parts of Cisco that he strove to rise above. But Cisco had plenty of support, people who loved him. People it was worth ignoring his worst impulses for. Echo didn't have that. He'd started off so much like Cisco. Bright smiles, funny quips, cheerful attitude, all worn down over time. With no one to love and support him, Echo became a shadow of himself in truth. And then he'd come into his powers and seen images of Cisco. And Echo came to resent Cisco for having what Echo wanted. Learned to hate. He'd felt entitled to take what he wanted and when Cynthia stood in his way, Echo had seen a way to punish Cisco for having in his life everything Echo's lacked.

Cisco could almost feel pity for him.

Echo's death wasn't the the sudden, unexpected betrayal Reverb suffered, that was later visited upon Reverb's version of Dante. It had been a moment of sheer terror, knowing his universe was about to end, his own powers taunting him with the knowledge that he had no future. That he'd never had a future.

Eyes blinking open after the onslaught ended, Cisco found himself tucked into Hartley's arms, curled up on one of the two beds in their hotel room. Hartley's face oddly serene in sleep.

Echo's memories are Cisco's now. And the memory of killing Cynthia was probably always going to haunt him a little. But it didn't feel real the way this life did. Or the life of the Cisco who'd lived on Earth-1 before the multiverse died. 

So Cisco wiped the tears from his face and slid out of Hartley's arms so he could visit the bathroom. Cisco used the toilet and then washed his hands and face. Brushed his teeth. His stomach is too knotted up from everything he saw to be hungry, so he just slides back into bed and let's Hartley latch back onto him with soft, sleepy grumbles.

And despite how awful it was to remember Echo's life, Cisco feels like he's turned a corner. His powers feel quiescent in a way they hadn't since being restored.

Fingers rub lightly at the back of Cisco's neck. "Go 'sleep," Hartley mutters. "Hear your thoughts, so loud."

Cisco snorted softly. "'night Hart," he murmured and let his eyes fall shut. Nightmares might await him, but that was all they'd be. Nightmares, not visions. He could deal with those.

* * *

There's someone laying beside Cisco when he wakes up. Hartley is the name Cisco's sleep addled mind supplies. The Fiddler.

No. The Pied Piper. Fiddler was Earth-19. And Cisco... Echo had never known Fiddler's identity because he'd never known Hartley, though they'd fought a few times. The Fiddler had been a hero.

But Cisco could recognize who the Fiddler had been now that he'd seen Echo's memories.

"You okay this morning?" Hartley asked, concerned.

Cisco's eyes flickered open lazily. "Yeah. That was... that was bad. But I'd been subconsciously fighting against Echo's memories since this whole thing started, so it was certainly never going to be good."

"He spent a lot of time in St. Louis, huh?"

Cisco nodded and sat up. "He was a pretty awful person, in the end."

"He killed Cynthia, in the previous multiverse?" The way Hartley says it makes Cisco wonder if Hartley's concerned for his own safety now. 

He wouldn't exactly blame Hartley if he were. Cisco's bad side has always been more theoretical than practiced. Now he remembers what it was like to murder someone and have his only concern be the cover up.

"Yeah," Cisco's voice choked a little and he stared down at the blankets that covered his lap. "He did."

"Let's have a day in," Hartley decided. "St. Louis isn't that special so let's skip the tourist thing today, laze around in our pajamas all day, watch _Leverage_ , read fanfiction, and get everything set up for us to take the train to Kansas City tomorrow. Book our next hotel room and tickets and decide which wineries we'll visit on our way there."

"Okay. That sounds good." Cisco's chest still feels tight, though.

Hartley pulled Cisco into a gentle hug. "I'm sorry you have to remember all that. You don't deserve to carry the weight of his memories," Hartley murmured softly.

No, he didn't deserve those memories. But if Echo had to be a part of Cisco now, then maybe one day something good would come of those memories. 

Standing and stretching, Cisco found he was still dressed in yesterday's clothes. "Do we still have time for breakfast? Because we might as well do that first, before changing into our PJs and starting our lazy day."

Smiling warmly, Hartley also clambered out of bed in his traveling clothes. "Breakfast bar should be open for the next half hour or so," he said, sliding on his shoes. "Now where did I put our key card..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While there were a number of things I considered having them do in St. Louis, when I decided that this was where Echo's memories would pop up I kind of realized Cisco wasn't going to want to be a tourist there. Too much potential for Echo's memories marring the experience. Which is why Hartley suggests they have a day in. They've already got the hotel room booked for another night and neither of them are really in the mood for more traveling just yet.
> 
> This is about as angsty as it gets for this story and Cisco's turned a corner with his visions now. His memories will be mostly settled from here on out, though he might still mix things up from the original timeline and this one. Eventually the question of Earth-2 will come back, but it'll be a little ways down the road.


	6. Chapter 6

The lazy day is just what Cisco needed after all. Once he's in his pajamas, he stays in them for the rest of the day. Hartley hooked Cisco's laptop up to the TV to play _Leverage_ and then they settled down to book their next hotel room and buy train tickets for the next day. They decide which wineries they want to visit and then start looking at what's available in Kansas City once they get there.

"Oh, there's a Segway tour," Cisco said, grinning impishly even as he glanced at his phone. He'd texted Iris earlier with a vague 'is Barry doing better today?' that hadn't gotten a response yet. He'd also spammed her with various pictures from Louisville and inquiries about how her investigation into the organization behind Allegra's cousin's assassinations was coming along. So it might take Iris a while to reply to all of that.

"All I can think of is the Doctor and Donna under the Thames riding Segways and having a giggle fit," Hartley replied, exchanging an amused look with Cisco. "I miss Donna. Her write off from the show was just so disrespectful to her character."

"Yeah... it really was. So many characters deserved better on that show." Cisco tilted his head to the side, "what if our lives were a tv show."

"Barry would be the main character, the show would be called The Flash," Hartley decided immediately. "You'd be ambiguously queer coded, Caitlin would have a new love interest every season, and I'd be lucky to guest star once a season with no contiguous plot arc because tv shows writers only pay attention to continuity when it suits them. If I was lucky I'd have the same boyfriend every season, but he'd be played by a different background actor every time, more of a sexy lamp than a real person."

Cisco cracked up. "Sexy lamp, really?"

"A character, usually a female character, who could be replaced with a sexy lamp and the general plot and direction of any scene they're in would be relatively unchanged," Hartley defined. "Since a lot of the misogynistic tropes are often recycled as queerphobic tropes on tv, I will forever contend that queer sexy lamps are totally a thing."

"I can't say I've ever seen a lamp that could be defined as sexy." Cisco was giggling helplessly at this point.

Hartley was grinning and laughing some himself. "Oh you're not looking hard enough." He brought up a new tab on his browser and googled 'sexy lamp' and picked images. There were several of an actual woman wearing a lampshade over her face and the image text made Cisco suspect those images came from a blog think piece tearing apart the concept of a sexy lamp. There are also several images of lamps with ladies legs as the stems, including one involving lacy panties that's just... embarrassing.

"Do straight guys actually think these lamps are sexy?" Cisco asked, appalled.

"Do we know any straight guys we could ask?" Hartley asked, hesitantly. "I... I honestly can't think of any straight guys I know well enough to ask. Well, one guy but he's trans and this is more of a cishet thing than just a straight thing."

"Barry's bi and Ralph's pan. Wally's queer. Julian is demi-bi..." Cisco shook his head. "Harry's aro, even if we could reach him... Tommy? Is Tommy straight?"

"Maybe? Probably? I mean, you'd think he'd tell me if he weren't, right?" Hartley grabbed his phone. "I'm gonna ask him."

Cisco grabbed the tablet and scrolled a little. "This one's funny, at least," he said, gesturing to a picture of a woman in a lavender shirt gazing adoringly at an ordinary lamp in her hands.

"I dunno, the one above it is a visual pun. It's a dick made out of wood." Hartley snickered. "And of course, there's the obligatory girl frustrated with boyfriend staring at other chick meme with lampshades over their faces."

"Why are we still looking at this?" Cisco asked as the scrolled further down the page. "Also, is that a butt shaped lamp?"

"Yeah, it is. And we are because we're slightly masochistic, apparently." Hartley shook his head sadly, "that one has a light switch for a dick."

"And that one looks like a pregnant lady about to give birth... I think we're done," Cisco muttered, closing out the tab. Hartley's phone chimed. "Is that Tommy satisfying our curiosity about straight dudes and sexy lamps?"

"Yes, it is. And he says..." Hartley snorted and passed over the phone.

"Because some straight guys only care about the aspects of ladies they find sexy and not the lady herself and of course I'm above that sort of thing," Cisco read. "He totally used to have a sexy legs lamp, didn't he?"

"I should text Thea to find out," Hartley said, snatching back his phone.

Thea affirms, the sexy legs lamp did indeed exist during college. It was a gag gift from Oliver, but Tommy was the one tasteless enough to use it in their dorm room for a year. It takes Cisco and Hartley a while to stop giggling and go back to deciding on what they'll do in Kansas City.

* * *

"Okay so we have on our list of places to visit, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Negro League Museum, The American Jazz Museum, Science City at Union Station, The Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden, and the Shoal Creek Living History Museum," Cisco rattled off. "That's... a lot. How about we split that into two days? The Negro League Museum and the American Jazz Museum are in the same building, so that could be one afternoon?"

"First afternoon, with the art museum in the morning, then Science City on morning number two so we can just wander the memorial garden to our hearts content in the afternoon?" Hartley offered as a potential itinerary. "It'll be warmer in the afternoon for the garden too. But then that leaves out the living museum..." he frowned, peering closer at the website and then sighing. "Never mind, that one sounded cool but it looks like they're closed temporarily for repairs after a recent storm knocked down a tree into one of the buildings."

"That sucks," Cisco sighed. "Still, works out better for us scheduling wise. And we should probably make a short trip back to our apartments to do laundry or at least trade out some of our dirty clothes for clean ones... or we could do that today."

"We should probably do that today," Hartley agreed, reluctantly pausing the show on TV and standing up to stretch. "How about we just go back to your apartment and do laundry there? I need to get my swim trunks out of your bathroom anyway."

"We can come back once we've got a load in the washer," Cisco agreed, also clambering to his feet. "Set a timer on our phones so I can toss everything into the dryer later?"

They both gathered their clothing and right as Cisco was stepping through the breach, his phone chimed. And then chimed again several more times in succession. Finally a response from Iris. He waited until after they'd tossed their laundry in his bottom stacked washer before checking to see what she'd said.

'Discussing therapy options with Barry - he said I could tell you. Thanks for making him talk to me about this. <3' was the first text, followed by, 'looks like you had fun in Kentucky; look forward to more pics', 'horsies!!!!!' (which was the same response he'd gotten from Frost on the horse race pics he'd sent - his eyebrows had gone way up on that one), and 'investigation is going well, gonna threaten Eiling later this week'. That last text was a little concerning, but Iris and Barry had each other's backs and if push came to shove then Frost and Ralph would keep them both safe.

They'd all be okay.

* * *

The lazy day comes to an end with room service for dinner and they switch off from _Leverage_ to _Good Omens_ for variety.

"I'm just saying, I'm more of a Crowley and you're more of a Aziraphale, that's all," Hartley said. "If we were to do cosplay together..."

"If you're volunteering to wearing ass hugging skinny jeans and walk like you're used to slithering instead of putting one foot in front of the other, I'm definitely not objecting," Cisco teased with a grin. "But I'm totally a Crowley."

"Nah, you're definitely an Aziraphale. You like being one of the good guys too much. And I totally fell from grace for asking the wrong questions." Hartley keeps his tone light, so Cisco rolls his eyes and lets Hartley win that one.

"Alright, I can wear tartan for a good cause, I guess," Cisco joked.

"Wait." Hartley sat up straight with a silly grin on his face. "Does that mean you'll really cosplay with me?"

"Yup. We're doing this. Though how should I do my hair? If Aziraphale had long hair, how would he style it?" Cisco hummed thoughtfully, as this was a very important question. How he did his hair would set the tone for the whole look, in his opinion. "He wouldn't leave it down. Pony tail maybe? Something controlled, so if I did a bun it couldn't be my usual messy bun..."

"Is it long enough to braid comfortably?" Hartley asked. 

Cisco nodded, a slow smile stealing its way onto his face. "A braid would be perfect."

Hartley grabbed the room service menu. "Want to get dessert?"

"Nah, I'm good. But if you tempt me with splitting something particularly delicious sounding, I might not be able to say no," Cisco teased.

"Well, I do have to practice for our future _Good Omens_ cosplay," Hartley joked back. "Hmm, which desert sounds both delicious and has a sufficiently gay sounding name..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I didn't start writing this chapter intending to google sexy lamp images, but then Hartley said 'sexy lamp' and I was obligated to do so. And, really, do cishet guys find these lamps sexy? Really? The visual pun of the wooden dick was funny, though. And I love the idea that Cisco and Hartley have to think about it to remember that they do actually know one cis straight guy. :D


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrapping up the stuff with Echo for now, though Echo's experience might come in handy for Cisco down the road. :D

_He struggled against the cuffs on his wrists, so confused about what was going on. "Why are you arresting me?" he demanded._

_And that was when he saw Percy's pale face being dragged into an interrogation room. And Echo had a sick feeling he knew what happened. He'd made a few devices for Percy to play with, fairly innocent, innocuous items... for the most part. But they could have been used for other purposes than their entertainment as Echo had intended. For theft, as an example. One device in particular would have made stealing money from cash points all too easy._

_Echo had made him swear he was done with his criminal activities before they'd started dating and Percy had sworn he was done with that, but if he'd lied..._

_It wouldn't matter what Echo said. He'd made the devices, that made him an accomplice in the eyes of the law. His priors for shop lifting would damn him._

_Echo never should have trusted Percy's empty promises and distracting kisses... he should have known he'd be betrayed._

Cisco shuddered awake and took a few uneasy breaths. Not the worst bit of Echo's life he could have dreamed, but it still stung. Still burned inside him. In some ways Echo was the inevitable product of a system of laws that cared nothing for justice. A self-fulfilling prophecy of ruin.

For all that the system that helped to break his doppelganger was worse than the one Cisco knew on his world... it reminded him of why Dante hadn't liked to drive. Pulled over and arrested, accused of stealing their mother's car. A terrified night spent in jail before it was all cleared up, no apologies ever made or recompense ever considered. Of Armando having epithets screamed at him by an off duty cop for daring to be visibly Hispanic and trans at Pride. At Cisco's own experiences in college out of state, being glared at by the cop who'd raided the dorm next door for marijuana. 

He'd never talked to Barry about any of that, for all that Cisco had grown to love Barry so quickly. He'd never clicked with a friend so hard so fast before, but Barry was still a CSI and so proudly CCPD. Cisco had never quite been able to find the words to explain that was the very reason he'd mistrusted Barry at first. The casual misuse of power among the police driving Cisco to build the Cold Gun just in case...

Nor had he ever really talked about how willingly participating in the illegal incarceration of his fellow meta humans made Cisco feel sick to his stomach, even now.

"'Sco," Hartley murmured, voice fogged with sleep. "Wha'time'zit?"

"Too early. Go back to sleep." Cisco rolled over and pressed his face into his pillow.

"Nightmares?"

"Yeah." Nightmares and bad memories all tangled up in each other. Cisco glanced over at Hartley.

"Wanna come here?" Hartley pulled back his covers in offering. "Just to sleep."

He probably shouldn't. Not when he still didn't know where his feelings were at; Cisco didn't want to lead him on. But Cisco desperately craved the comfort. So he got up, slipped into Hartley's bed, and curled into his embrace. "Thanks," he muttered against Hartley's neck.

Hartley hummed softly. "S'okay." His heartbeat under Cisco's ear is soothing.

Though Cisco hadn't thought he'd fall back asleep, he's blinking awake with sunlight streaming through the window and music blaring on the radio in what feels like moments. Hartley has already rolled away, swatting at the alarm clock and swearing under his breath.

And Cisco smiles, gets up, and starts to get ready for the day.

* * *

Cisco likes the train ride better than the bus rides. The chairs are comfier and the train itself is cleaner. And he likes that they're getting off not quite halfway there when they reach Hermann, to have a chance to really stretch his legs.

"So, where to?" Cisco asked, having declared Hartley the keeper of the list of wineries they were considering visiting. 

"Well, we'll be heading first to Hermannhof Winery, which is just walking distance from here," Hartley said, consulting his phone's map. "Down this way. Hermann's got a very German background, which was such a fun and weird language to learn."

"That's right, German's one of the many languages you speak," Cisco teased, hefting his duffel bag around so that the could wear it like a back pack. "How many are you up to? Last count was six, but that was years ago."

"Um, seven now. But I'm learning a few others, I just don't count them yet." Hartley shrugged. "If you count fictional languages, then it's eight."

"Oh?"

"Klingon." Hartley grinned impishly, saying something guttural sounding that Cisco has no doubt is Klingon authentic enough that General Martok would be proud. "It's part of the To Be or Not To Be soliloquy from _Hamlet_. There's a surprising amount of Shakespeare that's been translated into Klingon. Or not so surprising, considering there was a _Hamlet_ quoting Klingon in _The Undiscovered Country_."

"General Chang," Cisco recalled with a smile.

"Anyway, I figured we'd have a glass of wine at Hermannhof, then walk a little ways down the road for lunch at the Hermann Wurst Haus. There are a couple of vineyards outside of town we can visit if we want and then either take the train the rest of the way to Kansas City or we can cheat and you can breach us there," Hartley continued, setting their itinerary. 

Cisco has to admit, he kind of likes getting Hartley to plan stuff out. It may have started as being just Cisco's road trip, but it's Hartley's presence that's made it into an enjoyable vacation. He wants Hartley to have fun with it too.

They ended up at a table by a window, a glass of a semi-dry red each, a raspberry wine that Cisco wasn't quite sure he liked. But it wasn't bad either. 

"So how are you feeling today?" Hartley asked, gaze steady. 

"Surprisingly good. Echo's life doesn't feel quite real the way the Earth-1 timeline does. It's hazier, but not... fuzzy the way the other two timelines or realities or..." Cisco sighed and shrugged, taking a sip of his wine. He felt like he didn't have the vocabulary to explain his experiences, which made him just that little bit more frustrated with it all. "I can understand how he became the way he did," Cisco admitted. "He had a rivalry with your doppelganger," he added, a touch playfully.

"Oh, really?" Hartley grinned flirtatiously. "Anything like our flirty little rivalry, Piper versus Vibe?"

Cisco had kind of missed that little rivalry when his powers were gone. Hartley would get bored and lure Team Flash out to play sometimes. Cisco had liked to answer that call, always letting Hartley get away for... complicated reasons. Barry would give him knowing looks sometimes, but never called him on it. After all, he'd generally let Hartley go too.

He never let himself think about it too hard before, but now he did, examining his memory of their interactions with curiosity and amusement. The obvious answer seemed to be that Barry had been letting Hartley go for Cisco's sake.

"Sort of. The Fiddler wasn't anyone Echo knew or recognized outside of his vigilantism. And they were both wanted by the authorities because the Fiddler was involved in a number of protest movements against the government. Echo was just... trouble." Cisco smiled, but it was a sort of sad expression. "Fiddler wanted to give Echo something more to live for, but..." Echo never took it. Too battered and betrayed and afraid to trust again. The Fiddler had put out his hand again and again, but Echo had been too scared to take it. "Eventually Echo went too far and the Fiddler gave up on him. It was only after that Echo was exposed to whatever it was that kick started his powers and he ran afoul of the Collectors and Cynthia."

But of course, none of that happened in the new timeline. No investigation into Cynthia's death and no frame job. Cynthia was alive and well and had dinner with him just days earlier.

"Sounds like a literal lifetime to process there," Hartley said, reaching out to gently squeeze Cisco's hand.

It was, but it also wasn't. There were plenty of gaps, like Cisco had gotten a cliff notes version of Echo's life. Some memories were vivid, other's more like bare bones summaries, and much of it was just not there at all. Enough that he might've gotten lost in it without Hartley there to anchor him, but now it was over and the danger of losing himself was behind him. 

"I really, really can't thank you enough for coming along with me," Cisco said quietly, smiling sweetly and squeezing Hartley's hand in return.

* * *

They decide to stick to just walking around Hermann for a while, wandering into antique stores and taking pictures of the town. They eventually ended up another winery called Three Saints where they sat out on a patio enjoyed the crisp air. It was the first day of February, a Saturday and bright outside. They split a bottle of something semi-sweet, chatting about whatever came to mind. Planned for their Good Omens cosplay. And eventually Cisco breached them to just around the corner from their hotel in Kansas City and so they could check in before finding a nearby Mediterranean restaurant they could go to for dinner.

Cisco didn't think he'd have nightmares that night.


	8. Chapter 8

Given the location of their hotel, they end up swapping the order planned for their first day in Kansas city. They're walking distance from the Negro Leagues Museum and American Jazz Museum, so after breakfast they go for a leisurely walk to their first destination.

Cisco enjoys the tour of the Negro Leagues Museum. He didn't really know much about the leagues, just that they had slowly collapsed after World War Two when the Major Leagues began desegregating. So there's a lot of fascinating information to learn on the tour - significant players and their stats, pictures of the various teams, and most fascinating was learning that there were approximately seven different baseball leagues that made up the Negro Leagues major leagues. There'd been a numerous amount of minor leagues too, some that lasted only a few weeks and others that lasted for decades.

A number of Negro League players had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in the seventies, though Cisco is rather unsurprised - infuriated, but unsurprised - to learn that originally they weren't going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. They were to be awarded with a 'separate but equal' acknowledgement that would have been completely and utterly unequal, ultimately left out of the Hall of Fame altogether. But the players being considered for the 'award' refused to be mollified and refused to accept anything less than what their white counterparts were offered. The public was on their side and the Hall of Fame bowed to public opinion, inducting the players into the Hall of Fame with no caveats to keep them 'separate and unequal' from the other honorees.

The American Jazz Museum was in the same building as the Negro Leagues Museum, so that was the next place they wandered through. There were brightly colored interactive exhibits, pieces of history on display behind glass, and even members of the staff playing live performances. It reminded Cisco that, though it had been a while, he used to love to play jazz himself. But at some point the piano had become completely Dante's thing, parted from Cisco by the inexplicable gulf that had sprung up between them during their college years. But they had reconciled before Dante died and... maybe it was time for him to pick that back up.

His parents would love that, if the next time Cisco came to visit he sat down at that upright of theirs and played something for them. He used to play the guitar too, but he'd stopped after the accelerator failed. It'd be nice to pick that back up too. He'd let too many fun activities in his life slip over the years; no wonder this was the first real vacation he'd been on in years.

"Well I'd love to hear you play," Hartley said after Cisco voiced his desire to start playing the piano and guitar to him while they were settling down for lunch at a restaurant across the street from the museums called Bayou on the Vine. "If you don't mind accompaniment, I do play the flute. And I also know the piano, too. Though, much like you, my skills are kind of rusty."

"Sounds like I'll be in good company," Cisco replied and... oh.

The tilt of Hartley's head, the wideness of his smile, the look in his eyes... Cynthia was right. Hartley was looking at Cisco with heart eyes all the time. Cisco could feel himself blushing at the sight, getting all warm and a touch flustered from the realization.

He wanted to kiss Hartley... and he really, really needed to talk to Kamilla. Just hearing her voice, he was certain, would tell him whether he was really over her or not. Cisco needed to know the answer to that before he did something impulsive.

"So a flute really did inspire your gloves, huh?" Cisco asked, grinning impishly. "I thought maybe it was just an aesthetic thing to go along with the Pied Piper motif."

"Well, it kind of was just an aesthetic thing," Hartley admitted, looking a touch embarrassed. "I was going full out 'be gay, do crime' meme at the time, so I wasn't exactly thinking about my musical skills. I mean... I kept up the flute throughout high school and college, but once I started the PhD track I just didn't have time. I don't think I even thought about the flute again until I was trying to figure out what I could sell to fund my aids and gloves and what I couldn't bear to part with. My flute turned out to have more sentimental value than I realized. So it was kind of inspiration for the Pied Piper angle to my sonic tech... but in a vague way."

"Um... do you mind telling me how you found out about your secondary powers?" Cisco had learned about Hartley's sonic scream the hard way, when he'd shown up to a break in where Hartley had apparently been stealing evidence of... fraud and embezzlement? Anyway, Hartley had tripped an alarm, though if it had been by accident he'd certainly made the best of things, forcing Cisco and Wally to deliver the evidence to the authorities for him. Wally had snatched Hartley's gloves away and when Cisco went to snap cuffs on him, Hartley'd let out a shriek that tossed both masked heroes to the floor. Hartley'd retrieved his gloves, made a pithy comment that Cisco had been too dazed to make out, smirked infuriatingly, and then flew away with the force of his sonic abilities.

Cisco had called Hartley up later and bitched about his ears still ringing before demanding Hartley go over his math on his latest plan to bring Barry back from the Speed Force. Hartley'd just laughed and complied. Barry was back two weeks later and Cisco had, reluctantly told Barry that Hartley'd gotten bored and returned to a life of crime. He'd left out the secondary powers in the update, though, and had a giggle fit when Barry started complaining about wanting to fly a few months later when Hartley uncovered a diamond store that was selling illegal blood diamonds. Probably should've muted the mics before he started laughing, but it was hilarious.

"Well, it'd be fun to say that I had a boyfriend who was just that talented with his hands..." Hartley teased, grinning impishly when Cisco blushed brightly. "But the truth is I was mugged. I tried to kick the gun away, because I'm an idiot, and got grazed on the shoulder. I screamed in pain and... I just really wanted the guy to go away. Next thing I know, he's halfway down the alley he'd dragged me in to and my ears are ringing something awful. I was good, I called the cops. Who then tried to arrest me for assaulting my mugger. I had to ask for Joe like... three or four different times before they finally contacted him. And he wasn't happy to see me in the interrogation room on his day off, but he listened to me and then promised to keep my powers secret. Said it was too much to ask that I keep out of trouble, so he just had me promise to take care of myself. I'm surprised he didn't tell Team Flash, though. Especially after I tossed you and Wally around. I still don't know what alarm I tripped; Lisa was appalled with me."

Cisco laughed. "Well, by that time you were contributing pretty heavily to the math side of my project to bring back Barry. And Wally thought it was hilarious and wanted a rematch."

"Which he got. He convinced me to meet him out at Ferris Air to train with him one weekend before he went off on his world tour." Hartley looked fond. "He's scrappy. Figured out a few counters for my attacks by the time we were done; didn't always work, but he was just getting better and better. But... I could kind of tell he felt like he was living in Barry's shadow. I wasn't surprised when Barry came back that Wally took off. I thought maybe he'd stay for his girlfriend, but I heard that fell apart."

For the life of him, Cisco can't remember who Wally was dating. It was Jesse in the old timeline. In this one Cisco knew it was someone else. But he just can't remember. "I know I met her, but I can't remember her at all. I just remember Jesse."

Hartley fished out his phone and fiddled with it. "Wally's still Facebook friends with her, so... okay, here she is. Jog any memories for you?" He handed his phone over.

Taking the phone, Cisco stared at the screen. She was definitely not Jesse. Angela Garcia was a marine biology student at CCU; just graduated that winter with her BS and was now starting the Masters program. Her parents were Amy Garcia, née Smith, and Joaquin Garcia and Cisco had the vague recollection now that she'd met Wally during his illegal racing period. Cisco handed the phone back. "Jarred a little loose. I only met her a handful of times, though. So I guess she didn't make much of an impression."

"I met her a few times too. Very nice, very sweet, very boring. Definitely not someone I believe went to watch street racing on her own accord. I never could figure out what Wally saw in her; I think maybe it was the allure of dating a college girl while he was still in what he was still thinking of as his gap year?" Hartley shrugged. "Maybe the sex was just that phenomenal. Who knows."

Cisco choked.

"What? I dated Earl for, like, way longer than I should've because the sex was amazing. I can't be the only person who's made bad relationship choices for that sort of reason."

"Wally's like a little brother to me and I'm definitely the sort who'd like to pretend he doesn't have a sex life so that I never have to think about it." Cisco groaned and buried his face in his hands. "Also, yeah. College. Claire Watson. She cheated on me but I let her talk me into giving her another chance because the sex was good. And then she cheated on me again and I spent the longest time in a clinic waiting to take STD tests while devising a really passive aggressive break up email because I was pissed."

"Yikes. Yeah, I'd have been pissed too."

"Thankfully I didn't catch what she did, but that was not how I'd wanted to spend my Saturday afternoon." Cisco sighed and flipped open his menu. "We probably ought to actually decide what our orders are before the waiter shows up."

Nodding in agreement, Hartley opened his own menu.

* * *

After lunch they catch an uber to the art museum. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art had caught their attention because of the photographs of the gigantic shuttlecock and the glimpses of the architecture of the museum building itself. That most of the exhibits sounded interesting was more luck than anything, as they hadn't thought to actually check the exhibits until they were on the train the day before.

Their first stop is the Gordon Parks X Muhammad Ali exhibit, full of Parks' photographs of Ali along with selections of Parks' words about the racism he experienced growing up in Kansas and as an adult working as a photo journalist. There was something powerful about hearing Parks' own words about his experiences of being turned away from places he'd submitted his work for being a black man. For a long time Parks was the only black photojournalist at Life Magazine and there was a wealth of information about his work at the magazine. Of course, all the exhibits tied it back into the photography of Muhammad Ali - and certainly there was a great deal of information on display about the boxer himself - and how Parks' photography helped improve the other man's public image. 

It's all really heavy stuff and reminds Cisco all too keenly of the racism he's faced himself over the years. Honestly, all three museums they had walked through that day had reminded Cisco again and again of the racism that could be found in every facet of their country's history. He can't help thinking now, though, about one of the many reasons he'd struggled with his decision to set aside his powers and retire Vibe. He knew what it had to mean to kids to see a superhero who looked like them because of how much he'd have loved to see a Hispanic super hero running around Central when he was a kid. 

But it was one thing for there to be Hispanic heroes in the comics and another thing entirely for Cisco to be ticking the boxes of Hispanic super hero in real life. He was a person, not just representation, and he had to take care of his own needs first. Acknowledging that had been... incredibly hard for him. 

Deep in thought, Cisco let Hartley steer them through the Teachers of Enlightenment exhibit, which focused on Tibetan Buddhism. And then Cisco proved he was indeed still paying attention when he reiterated his disinterest in the abstract art exhibit. Abstract art was just... not something Cisco'd ever been good at finding any connection to. They end up wandering through the Creatures of the Night exhibit next instead, which was not about vampires and werewolves but about the increase in women's rights in Paris during the late 1800s and, of course, the very white male fears about about the 'fatal women' such liberties might develop.

Cisco really wished Kamilla was there to see that one. She'd have made the snarkiest comments about the poor, fragile egos of the terrified men folk. 

He still really missed her. She'd have loved the photojournalism exhibit too. And the Art of Illusion photography exhibit that Cisco and Hartley wander through next.

But... Cisco doesn't feel the compulsion to text her things like 'wish you were here' or anything like that. He just... might have some lingering feelings for her. He's not sure. Maybe he'll never be sure, but Cisco's starting to think he could be okay with that uncertainty, that he could still move on and find happiness with someone else.

So Cisco reaches out and slides his hand into Hartley's as they head towards the museum store. They both want to find something with the shuttlecock embossed on it - Cisco's thinking a magnet while Hartley's not quite sure yet, though he's already ruled out coffee cups. He's already got way too many, an affliction Cisco's quite familiar with.

* * *

Dinner is at a little cafe serving what it calls Italian street-food, though Cisco's fairly certain it's not nearly as authentic as claimed. It's still delicious, though, and they enjoy a glass of sweet red along with the meal before heading back to the hotel. Hartley decides to go use the pool, giving Cisco some privacy to make a few phone calls.

Once Hartley is out of the room, Cisco opens up his contacts and stares uncertainly at Kamilla's name. Then he shook his head. He'd made his choice before even leaving Central. He pressed the call button.

"Hey Cisco, how goes the road trip?" she greeted after only two rings.

It's good to hear her voice, but Cisco doesn't feel the longing he'd half expected. "Pretty good. I ran into Hartley on my way out of town and he tagged along. Glad he did too, it's been fun having him along."

"Ooooh," Kamilla's voice took on a teasing tone. "How'd you describe him to me the first time he showed up to annoy Barry after I joined the Citizen? Unfairly attractive for someone so troublesome?"

"I did not," Cisco objected with a laugh. "I definitely did not."

"You did," Kamilla teased, giggling. "Okay, so maybe those weren't your exact words, but it was heavily implied."

"I called him trouble; I did not remark on him being attractive," Cisco grumbled, propping his feet up and leaning back against the couch back. "Not that he isn't attractive. Because he is. But I totally didn't say anything about it." He grinned, feeling like he was falling back into a comfortable friendship, not the weirdness it had become before he'd left Central.

"It was written all over your face from the way you kept looking at him," Kamilla teased. "Thus the overall message was attractive and troublesome. So are you two..." Cisco could practically hear the eyebrow waggling.

"No, not yet anyway. My powers have been all over the place since the whole crisis thing, so he's been... watching out for me, really." Cisco sighed. "St. Louis was bad. But I think that's worst of it? I dunno, feels like it's all uphill from there anyway."

"That sucks. I'm glad you're not traveling alone. You know, I would have gone with you if you'd asked." Kamilla paused a beat, "but you were kind of being awkward around me before you left."

"Sorry. It's..." Cisco sighed softly. "We were dating. In one of those other realities I can remember now. We met the same way in that timeline that we did in this one. But we didn't fizzle out and decide were better as friends. We were living together." It feels weird to tell Kamilla this. "I needed some space to untangle my feelings from... that other Cisco's feelings. And I think I'm there now, but it wouldn't have been a good idea to have you come along."

"We worked out in that timeline?" Kamilla sounded odd.

"Yeah. But... they weren't us. They were... almost us. I like our friendship, Kamilla. I didn't... I didn't want to screw up the relationship we do have." 

"We should live our lives, not theirs," Kamilla filled in quietly.

"Yeah." Cisco wondered what she was thinking.

"So you'd be okay if I were to tell you that Ralph asked me on a date?"

"Yes," Cisco responded. "Did he?"

"No. He was going to, according to Frost, and then wimped out at the last second. Again. Why does he keep doing that?" Kamilla sounded frustrated now.

"You're gonna have to ask him out, Kamilla," Cisco told her. "Though I do think I know why he's psyching himself out," he added. 

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"When I first met Ralph, he was kind of an asshole. Disgraced former cop and it was Barry who'd gotten him kicked off the force." Cisco wasn't sure they'd actually told Kamilla any of this before. "You'll have to ask Ralph about what happened, but he is really ashamed of what he did back then these days. It was... watching him become a better person that first year he had his powers was really something. He became someone we're all really proud to call our friend. But sometimes he has trouble looking beyond who he used to be and thinks he doesn't really... deserve to be happy, I guess."

"So if I can get him to talk to me about what he's afraid of, then he'd be more open to me asking him out," Kamilla concluded. "Makes sense. Thanks, Cisco."

"You're welcome." He paused a beat then said, "I've got some pictures for you. Hart and I went to an art museum today and there were two photography exhibits you'd have liked."

"Which museum?" Kamilla perked back up. "What were the exhibits?"

* * *

"So... have a good conversation with your ex?" Hartley asked, still toweling his hair dry from his shower. He'd come back from the pool reeking of chlorine; the hotel had probably shocked the pool water a day or two before. The smell always lingered after the pool water was safe again. To Cisco's nose anyway; Hartley apparently couldn't smell it on himself.

At least now he smelled more like his body wash. Something citrus-y.

"Yeah." He doesn't ask how Hartley figured that one out. Cisco just leans his head comfortably against Hartley's shoulder. "We're good," he said.

"But are you over her?" And now Hartley sounds a little vulnerable.

"I've been over her for a long while. I just had to... remember which Cisco I really am," Cisco snuggled against Hartley's side. "I'm this Cisco. The one who belongs in this timeline. And that's the only Cisco I want to be."

Hartley's arm slid around his shoulders. "Good."

Smiling to himself, Cisco started mentally cataloging what might make a nice first date with Hartley, once he worked up the nerve to ask the other man out.


	9. Chapter 9

Science City caters more towards educating kids than adults, but it still had some attractions that drew Cisco and Hartley's interest. Checking out Union Station itself for starters; they wind up flipping through the local fliers and Cisco is extremely disappointed that the Dinosaur Road Trip isn't until July.

"It's for kids, Cisquito," Hartley teased.

"Dinosaurs, Hart," Cisco grumbled. "Why should little kids be the only ones who get to have any fun?"

Hartley had just laughed at him and handed him a flier for Legoland, the Sea Life Aquarium, and the WW1 Museum. "We could visit one of these after the planetarium but before the gardens maybe?"

"Legoland is more kids stuff," Cisco teased, earning Hartley's tongue stuck out at him. "Either that or the Aquarium sound fun. Unless they're doing an exhibit on Wonder Woman, WW1 really isn't all that interesting to me," Cisco added with a grin.

"Legoland and the Aquarium are next door, so we can figure that out after the planetarium show is over," Hartley said, stashing the fliers in his pocket. The doors to the Science City Planetarium for the Sky Station Live tour were opening and it was time for them to grab their seats.

The tour reminds Cisco of high school, but not in a bad way. The last time he'd been in a planetarium was when he was in eighth grade with Dante, having skipped a couple of grades. It was before their relationship fell apart, back when they were still best friends. They'd sat together in the planetarium, Cisco quietly teasing Dante about the girl the elder Ramon had a crush on and trying to keep his eyes off of one of the basketball players because Cisco hadn't quite realized he was pan yet and extremely confused about his feelings about the jock.

As they wandered, blinking owlishly, back into the light of day almost forty minutes later, Cisco found himself relating some of that long ago planetarium visit to Hartley.

"I went in the seventh or eighth grade too," Hartley mused as they settled on a bench to talk. "I was fascinated with the history of the constellation's names and the associated mythology. Sat with my best friend at the time; she wanted to study space at the time. I... don't know what she does now, though." He sighed, a touch sadly. "A year or so later she asked me on a date and I broke her heart when I told her no. I couldn't tell her I was gay, I knew she shared her parents' homophobia. I thought that maybe we'd be able to salvage our friendship once she got over her crush, but... she turned me into this awful bad guy in her eyes. It... things got really ugly all because I didn't like her back. If nothing else, it made me really determined never to be shitty to someone who didn't return my feelings in the future... though I can't say I've always been successful at handling rejection maturely."

"I'm sorry," Cisco hesitantly put an arm around Hartley's shoulders, gratified when Hartley leaned into his touch. "That's an awful way to lose a friend."

"I'd have lost her anyway once I came out as gay," Hartley responded. "But at the time... she was really my only friend and losing that friendship was pretty devastating." They sat there for a long moment and then Hartley asked, "do you want to visit Armando while we're on this road trip?"

The question both came out of left field and yet Cisco could kind of follow the brain jumps Hartley had to make to get there, what with talking about Dante earlier. While Cisco and Armando weren't as close as Cisco and Dante had once been, they still talked a lot online and Armando was one of the first people Cisco had come out to as pan. Which had in turn meant that when Armando had come out as trans, Cisco was the first person he'd told. They hadn't seen each other in person since...

Since Dante's funeral, actually. 

"That would be nice," Cisco said with a grin. "He's in Texas, though. Galveston. He's an artist and has been doing some really interesting work with driftwood. His etsy store is doing really well, anyway. Our parents understood him even less than they did me." Cisco hummed thoughtfully. "We could just breach there after making it all the way to National City. And then... I've never been to Atlantis."

"Neither have I," Hartley sounded amused. "I hear the best way to travel to Atlantis is by three day cruise. You know... just saying."

Cisco chuckled and absently ran his fingers along the side of Hartley's arm. "That'd be nice." He took a deep, steadying breath and decided to just go for it. "Can I... that is... I'd... I'd really like to take you on a date."

"A date," Hartley echoed, sitting up and grinning. "As in you want to date me?"

"Yes, Hartley." Cisco felt all warm and floaty at the excitement on Hartley's face. "May I kiss you?"

"Yes. To the date too, but definitely for the ki-" 

Cisco brought their mouths together before Hartley could really get on a roll with the rambling. It was just a chaste thing, but it left Cisco's mouth tingling pleasantly - a sort of hyper-awareness that he had Hartley's mouth against his own for a short while.

* * *

They end up wandering through the aquarium. Hartley balks at Legoland because it sounds too loud for his ears just from the outside; Cisco was a little concerned about how close the Aquarium was to Legoland, but Hartley'd assured him it was enough distance that he'd be fine. It was just going in Legoland itself that'd be a problem.

Just as well, they supposed. The Aquarium was a much better place for them to wander around giving each other sappy looks anyway.

Because they were definitely doing the sappy looks. Cisco couldn't help it and every time he saw Hartley looking at him like...

Heart eyes. 

Cisco just about wanted to skip their afternoon garden tour and... enjoy his boyfriend in one of those hotel beds. His boyfriend. Hartley Rathaway...

He linked his arm with Hartley's and sighed happily, leaning against Hartley's side as the watched some fish. Name was on a plaque right there but Cisco couldn't be bothered to look at it because he was too busy being ridiculously happy that he had a boyfriend.

"You're so cute," Hartley muttered softly, turning his face against Cisco's hair. 

Yup, Cisco wanted lunch and then Hartley in bed. In that order, though. He was really hungry. And it was probably terrible of him, but he kind of wanted sea food.

"I'm pretty sure you're both equally adorable."

Cisco and Hartley both froze at the sound of that voice. That very familiar voice with a drawl not unlike her brother's. Lisa Snart's voice.

Hartley swore under his breath, probably so as not to offend the nearby families.

"Lisa," Cisco greeted, putting a little space between himself and Hartley so he could look at her, but not letting go of Hartley's hand. He could practically feel the possibility of having sex all afternoon slipping away. "What a coincidence." He has no doubt it's no coincidence at all.

"Please tell me you weren't following my GPS," Hartley hissed.

Lisa fluttered her eye lashes at them. "I'd hate to lie to you, sweetie. Who wants lunch? I'm thinking sushi."

Cisco's stomach grumbled in agreement, the traitor. But seriously... fish sounded so delicious...

"Whatever," Hartley huffed, though at least he looked more amused than annoyed. Though there was definitely annoyance there.

"Oh, good, we can meet Joss at the restaurant when we're done wandering. I think the penguins are up next." Lisa bounced excitedly. "I love penguins."

Lunch with Golden Glider and the Weather Witch. That was going to be... interesting.

* * *

They end up at a restaurant called Nara, a restaurant that apparently did sushi and Japanese barbecue. It's a nice place and Cisco feels vaguely under dressed, not that anyone is staring. Joss Jackam, the Weather Witch, looks about as nervous as Cisco feels. She's up on her feet as soon as they walk over, getting a hug from Hartley - he had mentioned mentoring her, hadn't he? - and then very quietly demanding to know who Cisco is.

"Cisco is a friend of mine, Joss," Lisa responded before Hartley could. "And Hart's new boytoy."

"I've known him longer than you have," Hartley responded mildly, settling at the table.

"But I got to kiss him first," Lisa said with a smirk.

"Really?" Hartley's eyebrows shot up, though he looked more curious than jealous.

"Yeah, right after I pulled a bomb out of her neck," Cisco elaborated. 

"Oh, yeah, I remember you and Caitlin talking about that," Hartley was definitely amused. Lisa was pouting.

"There was also one time at a bar," she added. 

"Yeah and considering you were using that as a pretense for kidnapping me... maybe don't go there?" Cisco pulled open his menu. "I'm also kind of thinking you owe me some kind of apology for that."

"And you interrupted our date at the Aquarium." Hartley gave Lisa an unimpressed stared.

"Lunch is on me," she sighed. "And I'll lay off poking at your relationship too. Just, Cisco." Her playful look went sharp. "Don't hurt him. Same goes for you, Hartley."

"Why are you here, Lisa? Aside from stalking me with techniques I taught you?" Hartley looked annoyed even as he glanced through his own menu.

"I've never had sushi before," Joss said suddenly, looking lost. "How do we even order?"

Cisco exchanged looks with Hartley and then they swapped seats. Hartley could then continue quietly interrogating Lisa while Cisco educated Joss on how to order at a sushi restaurant.

"Since you've never had it before, we should definitely order some non-fish rolls, in case you don't like it." Cisco pointedly ignored the quiet conversation going on next to him, walking Joss through the different types of sushi and the ordering style - she had tappas before, so Cisco was able to make the comparison and see her light up with understanding. They both marked down a few plates that sounded good to share on the ordering form and then added a few of the barbecue items too. Then they interrupted the quiet argument between Lisa and Hartley to get the rest of the orders made.

Joss certainly seemed sweet. Cisco could understand why Nora had such a crush on her.

There's a pang of hurt after that thought. His brilliant, beautiful, brave niece. Who might never exist. And even if she did, she wouldn't be the same Nora they'd known that year.

"We're on vacation," Hartley repeated for the umpteenth time after their order was taken by the waiter. 

"Hartley, this guy has been top of your list for how long? It's a prime opportunity to take him down. But Joss and I can't do it without your brilliant hacking skills. And, well, if Cisco were to help..." Lisa trailed off, quirking an eyebrow in Cisco's direction.

She knew about his powers as Vibe, no doubt. It was the hair. His hair was just too pretty and distinctive; no one who knew him and knew he was involved in Team Flash could fail to guess the connection. 

"No," Hartley said, tone firm.

"He's receiving an award for humanitarianism," Lisa told him. "And a big check that he doesn't need."

The resolve on Hartley's face wavered. But he shook his head no anyway. "I'm not bringing Cisco in on this."

The arrival of the first of their sushi halted the conversation again and Cisco was the one who spoke up first once the waiter had moved on to the next table. "We probably shouldn't discuss this here. Hart and I were going to the Ewing and Muriel Kauffman Memorial Garden this afternoon. Since you'll probably be GPS stalking us anyway..."

Lisa grinned. "Much better place for us to chat about this," she agreed.

Hartley rolled his eyes. "Don't encourage her," he muttered.

* * *

"Roll it Joss," Lisa commanded once they were wandering along one of the many paths of the memorial garden.

The younger thief rolled her eyes, but pulled out her phone and handed it to Cisco. "Jim Parsons of Parsons International. A food manufacturer ostensibly helping to feed the hungry in various third world nations. Barely any of that food gets where it's meant to, however, and what does is often already well past the expiration date. This will be the second time he's received a humanitarian award for his work and Hartley's been working his way up to this guy for a while."

"I've been taking down his supporters," Hartley filled in. "But it would still be too easy right now for him to claim he didn't know about the corruption and spin things so that he gets sympathy for cleaning up his own company and sending his crooked co-conspirators to prison in his place. I'd love to take this asshole down, but all I would be able to manage right now would be inconveniencing him at best."

"That is where Joss and I come in, however," Lisa pressed. "The plan is to replace the actual presentation with a new one highlighting Parsons' actual activities including some surveillance footage and audio I've recently procured. While that's going on, we liberate some of his ill gotten gains for charities and our personal finders fees. It's all wrapped up in a nice, neat bow. And, sure, I could take a page out of your book and send what I've got to the FBI and let them handle taking him down for us. But then you don't get to be a part of this and we don't get to humiliate the hell out of him in front of his peers while simultaneously make those peers look stupid for honoring him in the first place."

"And you don't get the money out of it," Hartley added dryly.

"It's not like you don't skim a livable wage off the top of what you steal either," Lisa pouted. 

"True," Hartley agreed, tone mild. 

"Not always," Joss muttered. Seeing Cisco's curious look, she said, "sometimes he pulls a Hardison and uses the predicted fall out on the stock market to make ridiculous amounts of money. He's paid me for a few jobs that way."

"And a lot of that money winds up at Freespace, no doubt," Cisco filled in, grinning at the _Leverage_ reference.

"So you'd need to have someone sneaking into the party to replace the presentation while someone else is hacking the guy's bank account to redistribute funds," Hartley summed up. "You and Joss at the party while I'm hacking? That's not an agreement, by the way. Just trying to figure out what the actual plan was."

"Well, it'd be better if someone good with computers was doing the hack on the party too," Lisa wheedled, giving Cisco a coy look. "It's not like it'd be the first time you've done something like this, Cisco."

Now Cisco's the one getting an appraising look from Hartley.

"I've helped Team Arrow with a few similar issues, either when Overwatch was unavailable or the rest of the team didn't want to involve her and the Arrow. There generally isn't monetary theft thrown in, though," Cisco filled in, wondering how Lisa knew about any of that. 

She beamed. "See Hartley. I won't be corrupting your boyfriend after all."

"When and where?" Hartley asked.

"Four days from now in Salt Lake City." Joss was the one who answered. "We'd need at least forty-eight hours in advance to pull it together, though."

"So we can have two days to decide," Hartley filled in.

"One day. I'd rather know before I start the setup whether or not I can count on you two to be there," Lisa corrected.

"We'll call tomorrow and give you an answer then," Cisco said quickly. "And if we say no..."

"I'll try not to pout too egregiously," Lisa agreed, slinging an arm around Joss' shoulders. "I suppose we should let the love birds talk it out amongst themselves."

They waited until the ladies were out of sight before finding an empty seating area to settle on.

"I probably shouldn't be so shocked you've done anything like what Lisa's proposing already," Hartley said quietly. "Vigilantism isn't exactly legal either."

"Yeah, but like I said. No monetary theft involved and I was able to do all my hacking from the safety of STAR Labs. Never even had to leave the city for it." Cisco shrugged. "Never had to bring Vibe into it either. It's why I pushed for leaving you alone when you started up your Pied Piper shtick again. What you've been doing wasn't exactly all that different from stuff Team Arrow gets up to and we've all helped with that in one way or another. Barry might get a little star struck with blinders on about Oliver, but..." Cisco shrugged. "We do try not to be hypocrites when we can avoid it."

"I had wondered," Hartley admitted.

"So we started this road trip because I was in a bad place with my powers. But I do feel like that's cleared up for the most part. And I would like to do something nice for you," Cisco said, bringing Hartley's hand up to dust a kiss against his knuckles. "So I guess my only real question is do you want to do this or not. Because if you do, then I'm okay with this."

"I don't know. I don't..." Hartley sighed. "I really want to take this guy down," he admitted. "I just... need to think about this, okay? Let's just... finish wandering around the gardens together and have a really nice dinner. I don't want to think about this right now."

Not that Hartley was likely to think about anything else, but Cisco nodded anyway. If Hartley needed distracting, well... Cisco could be very distracting when he wanted to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's gonna be a heist!!!! This was actually planned from the start, but I've been putting off Lisa until Cisco was feeling stable enough to deal with her shenanigans.


	10. Chapter 10

Cisco is in his comfy _Star Wars_ pajamas, brushing his teeth alone in the hotel bathroom when it occurs to him that maybe he should wear something sexier to seduce his cute new boyfriend to bed with him. He stares at himself for a long moment, taking in the shower damp hair and the toothbrush sticking out of his mouth with toothpaste foam on his lips... the threadbare patches on his pajama top and then glances down at the faded, soft gray of his pajama pants.

He does not actually own sexier pajamas. He has less threadbare pajamas, though those are at home. He'd brought these for their familiarity and comfort, something he'd really needed when leaving Central City. But... honestly, Hartley's already seen him like this basically every night of their road trip. And their pajama day in St. Louis. Hartley still looked ridiculously excited when Cisco asked him out on that bench outside the planetarium, despite knowing what Cisco's pajama game already looked like. So... he can probably seduce Hartley into bed just fine looking exactly like this.

Minus the toothbrush and toothpaste foam, of course.

Shaking off the nervous feeling, Cisco finished brushing his teeth and joined Hartley out in the main room.

"So I guess we ought to discuss the whole heist thing now," Hartley ventured, looking up at Cisco from where he sat cross-legged on his bed, laptop in front of him.

"You did bring your Piper outfit, and gloves," Cisco pointed out, teasingly.

"I wanted to see if you'd call me on it," Hartley admitted. "And also I was... preparing for contingencies, I guess. I sort of... I sort of knew Lisa might come looking for me. She didn't out and out say it, but I know she's been looking into Parsons for awhile and..." he sighed quietly. "I think this is her way of trying to do something nice for me. 

"At the start of the trip you were flirting with me and it was lovely and I was hopeful maybe something mutual was there, but at the same time I wasn't actually sure you'd want me to stick around for the whole trip, once you got your feet back under you and..."

Cisco closed the distance between them and kissed Hartley gently. "For the record, even if I weren't interested in dating you, I'd have definitely wanted you to finish this vacation with me. Or if you weren't interested in dating me, though I'd be majorly embarrassed for reading things wrong. Thankfully we cleared up that 'mutually attracted or not' question back in Louisville."

Hartley laughed and tugged Cisco onto the bed with him, giving the engineer a view of the laptop. "Yeah. That was awkward."

"You quoted Zuko at me, it was cute." Cisco grinned. "Does that make me Sokka?"

Grinning, Hartley nodded. "Definitely. And I was very into the Zuko/Sokka ship during my brief foray into the _Avatar_ fandom before the fandom wars made me lose interest and fall back into _Harry Potter_ for a while. Maybe it's time for an _Airbender_ rewatch..."

"When we're done with _Leverage_ , maybe we could watch it together?" Cisco offered.

"Sounds good. But we're off topic now."

"What was the topic?"

"Heists." Hartley gestured to his laptop screen. "If you're really okay with the heist thing, then I'd really like to do this. But... okay, so I really do prefer being called Piper when I'm pulling a job. While it's not the best kept secret that I'm the Pied Piper, most people don't actually know... but it's not really about that. It helps me stay focused and compartmentalized. Which is probably kind of weird? But..."

"It's not weird," Cisco said, shaking his head. "And, honestly, the only reason I didn't go with it in the alley the other day was 'cause I kind of really needed you to be... Hartley. Not Piper. Like... it helps sometimes, talking about Vibe like he's not me. Or when I'm being Vibe, having that distance from being Cisco. Because then maybe I won't be freaking out when a serial killer who can negate my powers tries to murder me. Which... was why I faked my death last year; did I ever tell you about that?"

"Cicada," Hartley said quietly, taking Cisco's hand in his and squeezing lightly. "Lisa kept coming up with excuses to get me on jobs outside of Central. I think she was concerned he'd notice my secondary abilities and come after me. Which... I was a bit worried about too."

"He didn't care how anyone used their powers. And he claimed that because we didn't kill the criminal metas, we were part of the problem. It's one thing to kill in self defense or to protect others and I'm so glad I haven't had to do that and... being retired, hopefully I won't have to. Even with the Nazi invasion at Barry and Iris' wedding..." Cisco shook his head. "When given the choice, picking the non lethal option shouldn't be a bad thing. Every life is precious and I just... I don't understand the mindset that leads to that sort of 'kill or be killed' mentality." Even with Echo's memories, Cisco doubted he'd ever really understand.

"That's a good thing," Hartley told him. Then he, once again, redirected the topic back to the upcoming heist. "So from the sound of things, Lisa wants to pull a pretty basic two-part job. One person stays back and completes part one, which is hacking the marks's bank accounts and draining his funds into offshore accounts. If she wants to pull that, then she already has his account numbers - probably some of his passwords too. Or knows how to get a hold of them quickly. Lise knows how I like my computer setup and if she only wants a couple of days to throw this together, that means she's probably already has the tech I like for jobs outside of Central.

"Part two of the job is the party. She probably has invites for herself and Joss already, so you'd be going in as Lisa's plus one. And I'm a little jealous that she'll get to spend the evening with you in a tux. I bet you make a tux look hot," Hartley declared with a grin.

"Oh, I do," Cisco agreed with a laugh. 

"Lisa and Joss will likely do most of the distracting and clearing the path for you to reach the computer being used to run the projector and replace the night's presentation with something a little more truthful. I'd be taking care of the cameras from the outside once someone plants the first bug and helping to clear the way of any obstacles for you to replace the presentation. Depending on how much we can prep the actual location and whether or not the projector computer is internet connected... it's possible the whole thing could be taken care of remotely instead of onsite. Or we may at least be able to hack the camera system ahead of time."

"And will you be able to... pull a Hardison on this one?" Cisco asked, a little fascinated by Hartley's guess-summary off Lisa's plan.

"Yeah, I should be. Maybe not shattering amounts of money, but I can definitely pull together some creative stock moves in order to..." he waved his hand. "We'd basically be taking advantage of his competitors stock prices rising and... you know I never have actually bothered to learn the actual definition of insider trading. But I'm pretty sure that this is the sort of thing that gets massively frowned on at the very least."

Cisco snorted in amusement.

"Anyway, depending on how well it comes out, we could probably fund the rest of the road trip, including a cruise to Atlantis if that's something you're interested in, and still leave a significant amount of money to split between our favorite charities." Hartley looked a touch nervous. "But I guess the next question to ask is, how do we want to spend the next two days before meeting up with Lisa and Joss in Salt Lake City?"

"Denver," Cisco said, after a moment. "I don't want to miss out on Denver. And Colorado Springs is nearby, we could do the _Stargate_ tour."

Hartley wrinkled his nose. "It's a closet with the SGC banner over the top. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's a janitor's closet. And that's even if the Cheyenne Mountain base is still open for tours."

"Isn't that base part of the NORAD tracks Santa thing every year?" Cisco asked absently.

"Yup." Hartley started searching for hotels in Denver. "So downtown Denver is supposed to be a really fun place to just wander. And every time Colorado Springs comes up I always hear 'visit the Air Force Academy'. Do we want to put both of those on our todo list?"

"Sure. How about we breach to Denver in the morning and just... wander. Then we head to Colorado Springs the next day and Salt Lake City that evening so that we're ready for Lisa in the morning?" Cisco wrinkled his nose and sighed. "We'd save money if we didn't bother with the hotels," he admitted.

"And lose out on part of the vacation experience?" Hartley shook his head, teasing smile on his face. "No way."

Cisco smiled too and happily gave into the impulse to kiss Hartley. "So I guess that means we should go ahead and book both the hotel rooms in Denver and Salt Lake City?"

"Yup," Hartley murmured, voice a touch husky from their kiss.

Patiently, they set up both reservations, opting to keep the separate beds for now. Just in case. And then Cisco closed the lid of Hartley's laptop and set it aside, telegraphing his move to straddle the other man on the bed, in case Hartley wanted to put a stop to it.

"So," Cisco murmured, leaning in to nibble along Hartley's ear. "However shall we occupy ourselves this evening?" He hummed happily as Hartley's hands settled in his hair to drag him into another kiss.

* * *

Cisco does not want to wake up. He's comfortable. Warm. Naked... maybe a little sticky, but Hartley's shoulder is under his cheek and his hand is on Hartley's chest and he'd like to just stay in this moment a while longer.

The alarm clock has other ideas.

"Bad alarm clock," Hartley muttered, shifting away to turn it off.

"What happened to being a morning person?" Cisco teased, voice slurred with sleep.

"We didn't exactly get much sleep last night," Hartley teased back. He curled back around Cisco, sliding fingers carefully through sleep (and sex) tangled hair. "Though... I feel like I should point out that the shower here has a very nice sized built-in bench."

Snorting softly in amusement, Cisco kissed Hartley. "Good morning."

"Good morning," Hartley agreed, leaning down to nuzzle against Cisco's neck. "What are the odds I can convince you to let me wash your hair this morning?"

"Very good." Cisco let out a little whine as nuzzling turned into soft kisses that fluttered against his skin. "I mean, you have to get me out of bed first, but that's the only... the only obstacle... that is so distracting..." he muttered as one of those fluttering kisses was placed along the hollow of his throat. 

"Out of bed, huh?" Hartley pulled back, grinning impishly... and then flung the covers off them both.

"Cold!!!" Cisco sat up, reaching for the covers... eyes drawn to Hartley's body as slivers of sunlight fell over them both through the gaps in the drapes.

"Bet the shower'll be warm," Hartley teased, sliding out of bed and smirking as he grabbed Cisco's hands, redirecting them from the covers in order to guide Cisco out of bed. "Got you out of bed," he added, smirking when Cisco let Hartley pull him to his feet.

"So you have," Cisco agreed, swallowing heavily at the promise in Hartley's eyes. "Gonna warm me up next?"

Hartley's kiss was answer enough.

* * *

They call Lisa after their shower is over. She convinces them to meet her and Joss for brunch, which is how they wound up at an IHop ordering eggs and pancakes.

While they waited for their orders, Lisa cheerfully asked, "so what made you change your mind, Hart?"

"I'm still not thrilled about bringing Cisco into this, but it's his decision and... I really do want to get this guy," Hartley admitted. Lisa looked satisfied with the answer, a lovely smile on her face.

"I thought so," and then Lisa scowled as Hartley kicked her, lightly, under the table. "Jerk."

"Yes, you are," Hartley agreed smoothly.

"So, um... how'd you get mixed up with these two?" Joss asked Cisco, giving the two thieves a look that clearly said she thought they were being childish.

"Well, Hartley I've known for longer. He was basically Dr. Well's right hand man at STAR Labs when I was hired." Cisco grinned as Hartley groaned and slunk down in his seat a little. "I was really nervous that first day and then here was Hartley..."

"Oh god," Hartley muttered, slumping down further, much to Lisa's amusement and Joss' growing concern.

"A little more stiff in his dress and mannerisms than he is now, but still cute," Cisco allowed, smirking. "And then he opened his mouth and for the next several years all I could think about him was 'my god, what an asshole'."

Lisa cracked up and Joss looked rather amused.

"And I reinforced that opinion about once a day," Hartley admitted, blushing brightly. 

"I gave as good as I got." Cisco blushed a bit himself. There'd been times he'd said things he'd regretted later and he could blame Hartley for pushing his buttons but... Cisco was the one who'd said those things and he tried not to blame others for his own bad behavior.

"No, usually you were a lot more restrained than I was; Harrison encouraged both of us to be assholes to each other, though." Hartley shook his head. "We ended up burying the hatchet when Harrison Wells turned out to be the Reverse Flash," he added for Joss and Lisa's benefit.

"The... Reverse Flash?" Joss asked while Lisa frowned thoughtfully.

Cisco shrugged. "Pretentious, time traveler and self-declared one-true-nemesis of the Flash. Not safe to team up with and he tends to part with people who cease to be useful with a vibrating hand through the chest." He grimaced at the memory of a timeline erased by sheer luck.

Hartley slid their hands together, squeezing lightly. He'd been there when Cisco had stabilized his powers for the first time, crystallizing his nightmares into a clear vision of his own death. No doubt Hartley knew where Cisco's thoughts had gone.

Lisa must've seen something in their faces because she cheerfully launched into the story about her and Cisco meeting at a bar, where she'd gone to honey trap him. It's not really a happy memory either, but better to remember his brother alive and the bad choices Snart had given Cisco than the painful death that day had replaced. Lisa's retelling sort of skimmed over the more traumatic details, skipped forward to flirting with him before Ferris Air, and then teasingly recounted kissing her 'hero' after he had removed the bomb her father had placed in her neck.

Hartley was a good sport about it, rolling his eyes and then idly agreeing that Cisco was a wonderful kisser. Which made Cisco blush brightly.

"So you work with the Flash?" Joss asked, eyes lighting up with curiosity. "Did you, um... did you know XS? Do you know where she, um..."

"She's the Flash's kid. From the future," Cisco told her steadily. "She had to go back." Joss didn't need to know anything more than that and, thankfully, didn't press the subject.

Hartley stroked his thumb across the top of Cisco's hand soothingly and pointed out the food was coming and more customers were arriving, so maybe they should steer away from sensitive subjects? Certainly XS was a sensitive subject. Just... not the way Joss thought.

The rest of brunch was lighthearted teasing and discussing the news that a _Leverage_ reboot was really going to happen after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can actually tour the facility at Cheyenne Mountain, assuming you book well in advance and go through their security checks. Hartley and Cisco would never pass those, though, given their myriad illegal activities. :D And there really is supposed to be a closet dedicated to Stargate Command. Obviously this is a false flag operation so you don't realize that further down in the facility is where the real SGC operates. ;)
> 
> I've actually been to the Denver/Colorado Springs area while visiting one of my cousins; I really want to go back once its safe to travel again, so hopefully sometime next year.


	11. Chapter 11

They arrive in downtown Denver not far from the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, so they ended up wandering over there first. The architecture of the building was gorgeous inside and out and they both wound up snapping pictures what seemed like every few steps.

"My parents are Catholic," Hartley said quietly as they wandered between the pews. "I mean... I guess still am too, but lapsed."

"Easter-Christmas Catholic," Cisco volunteered in response. "It makes my mamá happy."

"Is she... is she okay with you being pan?" Hartley asked.

"She handled it better than papá did and they both took it better than Dante. But by the time Armando set them down and explained he was a guy, my parents had come to the conclusion that they just had to agree to disagree with the church over whether my sexuality made me a sinner by default." Cisco yawned and then blushed. "What is it about being in a church that always makes me yawn?"

"Starts from being tired when attending eight AM mass and then continues as a Pavlovian response when you finally start attending church at later hours," Hartley teased. "Stay in here too long and I'll start yawning too."

"10:30 mass, but sounds about right," Cisco agreed with a laugh. "Stained glass windows... is it weird that I want one some day. Not with religious imagery, but... something pretty to shine colored light across a room."

"I take it you mean an actual window and not something that hangs in the window."

"Yeah." Cisco sighed. "It's terrible. I've fallen in love Joe's house. I want one just like it but with a period appropriate stained glass window in it somewhere." He gave another dramatic sigh as Hartley laughed.

"What kind of house does he have?"

"Craftsman house, from the 1920s... 1930s? Barry says the pipes are haunted, but... every time we wind up over at Joe's place, that house feels like a home. I mean... I get that's got a lot to do with just how welcoming Joe is, but..." Cisco shrugged, "but those houses are expensive and I wouldn't have the time to fix one up anyway. I prefer my house pipes not-haunted."

"You do realize even with dropping being Vibe, you do more work than everyone else on Team Flash, right?" Hartley nudged his arm lightly. "You design the tech. You make the tech. You run the coms, which takes keeping up with latest in hacking skills. You've taken to running that museum out of the first floor on the weekends and when schools book tours during the week. What other hats do you wear?

"I make the suits... though, honestly, that's relaxing for me."

"Because it's the armor that keeps your friends safe," Hartley guessed.

Cisco sighed and dropped onto the nearest pew and scrubbed his hands over his face. "When did my life become so completely tied up in my work?" Even in that other timeline, he started dating Kamilla and how long did it take before she was working at Iris' paper and tied up in Team Flash work. And maybe that was fine for the Cisco of that universe. But... in this one he'd been so caught up in Team Flash that he was burning out.

"It wasn't so bad in the other timeline, I think," Cisco finally said. "We had practically a rotating door of Wells from alternate Earths. Harry and then HR. Harry came back after HR died, then Sherloque and Nash... they all took the pressure off me on the tech side of things. Except HR, but he was... a breath of fresh air in his own way."

"But in this timeline, no Harry or Sherloque," Hartley filled in, sitting beside him.

"Nope. No Harry or Sherloque." Cisco sighed. "Even with them around, I needed to work on a healthier work-life balance. It's a little late, but maybe I should make that my new year's resolution."

Hartley snorted in amusement. "I could do some consulting work for the team, if that's something you'd all be okay with. I'm not saying I'd be putting in a forty hour work week for you guys, but I could help out on some projects, be thoroughly distracting and luring you away from the Cortex for a quickie at lunch time..."

Cisco elbowed him and hissed, "we are in a church! And it echoes!"

Snickering, Hartley kissed Cisco's cheek. "Anyway, offer's out there for you to put to the others when we get back."

"I'd appreciate the help... and a reminder to practice better self care."

"This vacation is a good start," Hartley observed, then added, "but where I was going with this is that if you, say, asserted more boundaries on your personal time then you'd have time to fix up a condo or a house or whatever just how you like it."

Cisco hummed thoughtfully because... that was true, wasn't it? Though it wasn't so much his teammates he needed to assert those boundaries with as it was himself. He'd get caught up in fascinating science and work through dinner and then the next thing he knew it was two in the morning and he was breaching home to fall face-first into his bed. He'd reasserted better hours after ditching his powers, but he would still find himself driving home somewhere between eleven and midnight because he'd reset his phone alarm reminding him to go home at a decent hour six times already.

"I give myself too many things to do," Cisco admitted. "I see something that needs doing, so I just... do it myself. Which means that no one knows how much I do because I don't bring it up until its relevant."

"Maybe I should just pray for you," Hartley muttered, sounding somewhere between amused and exasperated. "Anyway, before we head out I want to stop by the votive candles. It's been a while since I last did it, but I usually try to remember to light one for my Grandma Phryne. She strongly suspected that I'm gay and left me the trust fund that saved my college career anyway."

Cisco nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe I'll light one for Dante too."

There are two more candles flickering in the votive glasses as they wander out of the church together.

* * *

The rest of the day is spent wandering through tourist trap shops and watching street performers. There's a particularly talented violinist they they end up sitting down with hot chocolates from a nearby café to watch, huddling together on a bench for warmth as they listen to the beautiful music. They don't get up until the violinist is packing up to move to another venue and they both make sure to add to his haul before he leaves.

They also talk about doing another train ride after they're done in Salt Lake City. There's the Amtrak from Salt Lake City to Reno, though neither of them are super interested in visiting Reno for the same reasons neither of them are interested in Las Vegas. They've gambled with their lives enough times to make gambling with their money kind of... boring. Also they'd both probably get in trouble for counting cards since they both do that automatically when playing card games. So the casinos were right out.

Over dinner they crowd around Hartley's phone while waiting for a table at the restaurant bar, checking for other trains they could do. There's an interesting mining train in Idaho, but they have to rule it out when they realize the tourist train ride had apparently been shut down since 2016. The only other train to pass through the state was another one of the Amtrak lines. Nevada has more options, but they finally get seated at their two person booth before they can really start pouring over those. 

They put away the phone and talk about other things for a while. Hartley tells Cisco about his grandmother Phryne, who'd been a wartime nurse in World War Two and had absolutely scandalized her daughter Rachel - and delighted her grandson Hartley - telling stories about the lady nurses who'd very much preferred other ladies to the soldiers. "I'm pretty sure Grandma Phryne was bi. I mean... she never outright said it, but she and Grandpa Arthur always seemed very much in love but apparently she also kissed a few of her fellow nurses, so..." Hartley snorted in amusement. "Mom insisted Grandma was senile and remembering poorly, but Grandma Phryne had all her faculties when she passed away in her sleep. She always said it a shame her daughter became a bigot because Rachel certainly never learned that shit from her. She also called herself a friend of Dorothy's once, so..."

"Seriously?" Cisco beamed. "Oh, she sounds wonderful."

"She was. I miss her so much." Hartley sighed and twirled a sweet potato fry about in his fingers for a moment, before taking a bite. "She gave me a copy of _The Wizard of Oz_ and told me that..." Hartley paused a beat, then said, "she said she'd always envied the princess in the later books, who got to be a boy and a girl. So maybe Grandma wasn't just bi. Father's side of the family is super queerphobic, though, so they just pretend Grandma Phryne was this perfect, super Catholic icon."

"Princess Ozma is genderqueer?" Cisco asked, startled because... seriously? He'd never known that before. Made him kind of want to download the series - surely it was public domain by now? - and start reading this evening.

"Well, she was transformed into a boy as a baby and became a girl again later in life, having a very close, personal friendship with Dorothy. Which is what sparked the whole 'friends of Dorothy' thing in the first place," Hartley explained, seeming a bit relieved for the segue into a lighter topic. "Though Baum really didn't pay too much attention to continuity from book to book, so the story varies. And that's not even going into all the rewrites of the series that other authors do. Though I think Gregory Maguire's version keeps the whole Tip turns into Ozma thing. But with more sex."

Cisco shook his head. "I couldn't read that series after _Wicked_. I wanted Elphaba to have a happy ending so badly, but knowing how things were going to end for her, I barely managed to finish the first book. I like the play, though, since it does change the ending."

"And the songs are gorgeous." Hartley grinned, humming a few bars of what sounded like _Defying Gravity_. "I don't think I actually read the rest of the _Wicked_ series either, though. I read plot synopsis of them, but I liked some of his other books better so I stuck to those."

"It'd be fun to go see a play in National City. I wonder what musicals are on stage there..."

"Maybe you should ask your friend who lives there - see if she'd be interested in going with us," Hartley offered. "If she's seeing anyone we could make it a double date."

"I think Kara's single right now, though her sister Alex is dating someone named Kelly. Their pictures on Facebook are adorable."

"Then maybe they'd come too and the five of us could make a night of it." Hartley looked happy about it. "Just ask her to make sure the place has a good reputation for deaf accessibility, because I usually like to block out sound in theaters. The echo effect of the microphones can be really disconcerting."

Cisco nodded. Kara would be thorough about it too, no doubt. Hopefully they wouldn't lose her to any super-heroing that night - she deserved a night off, especially considering the way she was stuck putting up with Lex Luthor these days.

* * *

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Kara enthused. "Alex and Kelly'll love it too. When do you think you'll get here?"

"Uh, well, we're spending tomorrow in Colorado Springs and then headed to Salt Lake City to spend a few days there with some mutual friends of ours," Cisco said, careful not to name Lisa or Joss. "We might breach back to Central after that to have a laundry day and then we'll be headed to somewhere in Nevada probably? We want to do a tourist-y train ride somewhere and there are a few in Nevada to choose from. But after Nevada we'll be headed straight to National City." Cisco hummed softly to himself, mentally tallying the days. "So in about a week? And we'd be staying for a few days. Got any hotel recommendations for us?"

"Definitely." Kara named a hotel that was walking distance from her apartment complex. "I am so excited about this. It'll be so good to see you. It's too bad Winn's already gone back to the future. I really wanted you two to meet. I mean... we've still got an alternate version of him from one of the other Earths that merged into Earth-Prime. But that Winn is evil and in jail. So..." she sighed.

"Wait... there are two versions of Winn in our universe now?" Cisco straightened up, thinking of Nash and Harry and all the different versions of Wells. "How'd that happen?"

"Since our Winn lives pretty far in the future, it left an opening for another non-time-displaced version of him to manifest too. They can't coexist at the same time for very long before they both started getting sick, so our Winn went back to his time with his wife once evil Winn was arrested."

"That explains Nash, then..." and Laurel, Cisco mused.

"Who?"

"Nash Wells. He's from another Earth from before the whole multi-verse rebooting thing. Since the real Harrison Wells died over fifteen years ago, there was a space for another Wells to take his place. So Nash is still here with us. I'm still hoping that Harry Wells and his daughter Jesse from Earth-2 are somehow okay in this rebooted multi-verse. But my only potential lead is Laurel Lance since she's from Earth-2 as well. But she's gone missing looking for Dinah Drake which means I'm out of luck until she resurfaces."

"I'll ask around the DEO to see if anyone's got a bead on survivors from the multi-verse reset," Kara promised. "Ooooh, you might give Kate a call. She said something about two versions of her sister giving her trouble when I talked to her last. Do you have her number?"

"Nope. Kate Kane?" Cisco clarified, remembering Batwoman from the crisis. She'd been incredibly impressive and Cisco had been a little too intimidated to ask for her autograph - much as he'd wanted one. Laurel's autograph - the original Laurel's autograph - as the Black Canary was still one of Cisco's most prized possessions.

"That's the one," Kara confirmed. "I'll send you her number tomorrow. And let her know you'll be calling so that she doesn't screen your number."

"Thanks, Kara," Cisco replied, wondering if he should be adding a pit stop at Gotham to his road trip at this point. A worry for future Cisco, he decided. He'd hear what Kate had to say first before determining whether he should detour at some point or not.

They wrapped up the conversation pretty quickly after that, which meant Cisco was done with his phone calls for the evening. He could concentrate on looking up trains in Nevada with Hartley and continuing their Leverage re-watch.

And kissing Hartley. He could definitely go for some more Hartley-kisses.

In fact... setting his phone aside, Cisco tucked himself into Hartley's arms and pressed their lips together for a few long, lingering kisses. They were both all flushed and warm, stretched out on the bed together and, well... figuring out which tourist attraction train they wanted to ride could wait for later.

Much later.

* * *

"Mmm... that's distracting," Cisco murmured, enjoying the way Hartley's fingers were carding through his hair.

"It is distracting," Hartley agreed, nuzzling his face again the back of Cisco's neck. "Your hair is so soft. I want to learn how to braid it."

"That can be arranged." Cisco felt a pleased smile curve its way onto his lips. "Seriously, though, trains Hart."

"Alright, alright," Hartley sighed and kissed the back of Cisco's shoulder and then settled down to look at the tablet with him. "So I guess the first question is how long do we want the train ride to go for. The Nevada Northern Railway and Museum runs about ninety minutes and there are some good parks for skiing nearby. Though the last time I went skiing I broke my arm, so I'd rather be a lodge bunny," Hartley told him.

"Never actually been skiing," Cisco told him. "Can't say I'm all that eager to learn, though. A ninety minute train ride through scenic snow covered tour does sound nice, though. Assuming that the train is heated."

"Looks like coach should have heating, though I doubt the open air car will. And... oh that sounds fun," Hartley gestured to where the website talked about outlaws 'attacking' the trains and how the trains 'most likely to be robbed' would be marked with 'ROBBERY' on the train schedule. "I want to be on a train that gets robbed by outlaws."

Cisco laughed and nodded. "That does sound fun. So I guess that makes our Nevada destination Ely?"

"The Nevada Southern Railroad," Hartley said, changing tabs, "is only a thirty-five minute ride and its only open on weekends." He closed that tab, quietly vetoing it. "The Virginia and Truckee line is another thirty five minute ride, though that one goes between two points instead of a round trip and it's got some interestingly named historic buildings on either end. So maybe we could do one on the way to National City and then the other on the way towards Texas and Armando?"

"That sounds like a good plan," Cisco agreed, bookmarking both websites. "How about Ely first and Virginia City on the way back through?"

"My thoughts exactly." Hartley yawned widely and let Cisco put aside the tablet. "Mmmm.... sleepy," he murmured.

Chuckling softly, Cisco reached over to turn off the light and then snuggled down into the covers with Hartley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up Colorado Springs and then on to Salt Lake City. :D


End file.
